


Baby wants a new life (that's what she might get)

by no_exits



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Buckle up, Canon adjacent but mostly canon divergent, Evie is not a Demon, F/F, M/M, Mal is a Demon, Mal's gonna be pretty evil guys forreal, Past eating disorder mentioned, So Crazy Shit Ensues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-09 22:30:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11678403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_exits/pseuds/no_exits
Summary: If you can’t make a prince fall in love with you, spell him. If you can’t spell him, get someone else to do it for you. If you can’t get someone else to do it for you, get some other demon to do it for you, preferably one with jarringly green eyes, long, purple hair, the sickly sweet smell of strawberries clinging to her, and a tendency to speak her mind even, and especially when, you’d rather she wouldn’t.Or: how Evie’s unintentional fuck-up ends up being exactly what she needed and, perhaps more dangerously, everything she wanted.





	1. Knee-deep in trouble

**Author's Note:**

> So. I loved Descendants 2, and by god, I started writing a fic after years of nothing. I'm not sure whether to thank Disney or curse them. I guess you guys get to decide the same thing.
> 
> Anyway... a great listen to accompany this fic is 'Pressure' by Until the Ribbon Breaks. I might drop some other songs later, but that one definitely had the biggest influence (i.e. the name of the fic and chapters lmao).
> 
> Enjoy the ride I guess!

Evie was standing in the brightest room she’d ever been in, staring at a pile of junk, her heart aflutter, wondering how on earth her life had changed so drastically in under twenty-four hours. She was no longer Evie of the Isle; she was in Auradon. Everything had changed.

Except for the fact that she was standing and staring at a pile of junk. That reality sung a markedly Isle-esque tune that she did not appreciate in her moment of introspection.

“We’ve been here five minutes, Jay. Where did you even get all that stuff?”

“Headmistress.” Jay drew his fingers across the cover of a leather-bound notebook. “One of the cheerleaders.” A gold bracelet. “That Prince guy – seems like a real dreamboat, by the way” (a feather-tipped pen) “– oh, and this came from that band kid that couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Evie’s fingers, previously brushing themselves over the posts of her new bed, froze. She cast her friend a confused look. “You stole his retainer?”

Jay looked down at his hand and grimaced. He dropped it immediately. “Gross. That’s a retainer?”

Carlos’ look of disgust put them all to shame. He sniveled his nose at the other boy and saddled to the other side of the room. “Dude, gross! How do you not know what a retainer looks like?”

“I dunno. When was the last time either of you actually saw someone with a retainer?”

“About five minutes ago,” Carlos said, at the same time that Evie said, “he really was charming, wasn’t he?”

Jay kicked the discarded retainer under the closest bed, upon which he immediately threw himself. “Who?”

“That prince kid,” Carlos said dismissively. Evie’s fingers were now drumming a complicated beat against the posts of her own bed, her eyes searching the room as she slowly wet her lips. But she wasn’t thinking about their new dorm in the slightest.

“Oh.” Jay’s voice was muffled as he stuffed his face into the pillow before him. “Yeah. His girlfriend has him on a leash, though. You should probably go after that band kid. You could give him back his retainer.” And then he moaned, “god, this thing is soft as fuck. Carlos, come feel this, man.”

“I didn’t notice anyone in the band,” Evie replied easily. And so she hadn’t – as soon as she’d exited the limo, she’d only had eyes for the boy standing front and center. _The Prince_. It was a moment that she’d been anticipating for most of her life. When her mother had told her that royalty had an imminent presence, she’d never known what she’d meant. Not until today.

And that was who Evie needed to be with. Royalty. It was the plan her mother had crafted for her, and it was the plan that made sense. She took a deep breath and smiled. “Princes don’t play in the band.”

In response, Carlos sighed. “They don’t make pillows like this on the Isle.”

“They don’t make Princes like that on the Isle.” Evie’s eyes had snapped back upward, hard this time, as she turned and focused on her friends. Carlos was nestled into Jay’s side, and both of them were closing their eyes with contented smiles on their faces. They couldn’t have cared less about Evie’s dilemma if they tried; not that she minded. She didn’t care about how soft their pillows were, either.

There was a comfort in the knowing friendship that the three shared. They were all each other had, after all.

“I have to have him,” she decided, with a final nod.

Carlos dreamily replied, “you go, girl.”

-

Once she’d set her mind to something, Evie had a tendency to lose herself. There was no objective more important than her romantic aspirations – that included homework, after-school activities and, perhaps most importantly, attempting to fit in.

Not that her social isolation made much of a difference to her. On the Isle, it had only been her, Jay and Carlos; a rag-tag team of misfits who not only stayed to themselves but artificially shooed others away at the slightest show of interest in their activities. The Isle was a hard place, which meant that ‘friendship’ was hardly allowed to blossom organically. The only reason Evie had Jay or Carlos in the first place was because their parents had decided to stick together through the years. She supposed they were lucky that way: they actually liked each other, given no particular reason to other than their physical closeness after birth. Sure, Jay and Carlos were different from her. But they were genuine people. And genuine people were all but impossible to come by on the Isle.

And genuine goodness, well… Evie had yet to decide whether it was at all possible to encounter that, on or off the Isle. If goodness existed, if second chances were real in the hearts of all (or any) at Auradon, then it was hardly showing.

There was certainly no welcoming committee that bothered to greet Evie, be it from the goodness of their hearts or otherwise. There was only the Headmistress’ mousy daughter (Julia? Jane?) who flinched at the very sight of Evie, the cheer squad (all of who seemed to have personal reasons to hate Evie, perhaps most especially the Prince’s girlfriend), the band kid who continued to bother Evie, and, of course, Ben.

Ben. Prince Ben.

It had taken her a few days to learn his name, but now that she knew it, she really thought she could love him. He wasn’t bad-looking, after all, and he seemed nice. Not to mention that he was a Prince. Soon to be a King, even. She knew that being with Ben would more than compensate for her mother’s lack of faith in her.

And if it didn’t, well…

That wasn’t an option.

The only problem was that he had yet to notice her. Not for a lack of trying on Evie’s part, of course. She’d spent the past three days memorizing his schedule. She found it most effective to greet him two to three times a day, with ample space between each brief meeting (so as to give the illusion of spontaneity). Thus, Evie positioned herself outside of his 11 AM class and smiled at him every morning. Then, after lunch at 12:30, she would pass him while throwing her trash away. This gave a moment for her to say “hi.” Last but certainly not least was the end-of-the-day rendezvous at 3 PM. This was the most crucial meeting, as it allowed for the longest exchange.

Thankfully, Evie’s last class was remedial goodness, which was only two halls over from Ben’s last period. That gave her plenty of time to quickly stroll over and act like she was getting into her locker. As Ben passed each day, Evie made a point to wave and ask how he was doing.

Unfortunately, Ben always seemed frazzled by this time. Evie figured it had to do with something like the stress of being a Prince and knowing that he would one day rule over all of his classmates. As awfully clichéd as it sounded, she could only hope that he’d one day break down and give her the proper opening to start an honest conversation. Evie could relate to pressure; she’d been pressured by her mother on countless occasions. Even now, with an invisible barrier separating them, Evie could feel her mother’s words suffocating her, controlling her. Surely the similarities between herself and the Prince would only grow from there.

But by the fourth day, Evie was growing tired of the charade. She had only so much patience.

When the bell rang, she threw her things into her bag and tossed it over her shoulder. She gently pushed through her classmates on her way toward the door. It wasn’t difficult to make her way through crowds; most of her classmates withered away from her as she traipsed through the halls. In this case, it was a plus.

Evie made it to her faux-locker in record time and made a show of dialing a random set of digits. Her eyes fluttered to the half-open door in anticipation. Ben was usually one of the first ones out, almost definitely because he sat in the front of the class. Evie could respect an academically dedicated person, though she did find the boy’s incessant goodness the least bit trying, from a distance.

Her attention was diverted as a familiar figure approached, though hardly the person she was hoping for. It was the Headmistress’ daughter, her eyes doe-like and wide as she scurried through the hall. Her fingers were clutching her stack of books like a lifeline. It was only once she spotted Evie, though, that she seemed to actually require life support. An unmistakable squeak escaped, causing Evie to frown and turn as the girl quickened her pace down the other end of the hall.

Had she not been on a mission, Evie might have flagged the girl down. She didn’t worry herself with most of the adverse reactions from other students at Auradon, but for some reason, the blatant fear crawled uncomfortably under her skin. They weren’t their parents. And besides a bit of harmless stealing on Jay’s part, and perhaps a slightly different wardrobe from their peers, the three of them had done nothing to suggest otherwise.

“You alright?”

Evie nearly jumped out of her skin. She hit the side of the locker as she turned the opposite direction, to the source of the unexpected noise, only to find the object of her fancy watching her uncertainly. Evie laughed nervously and dropped her fingers, forcing a large smile.

“Me? Of course, yeah… I’m great. Why…why do you ask?”

Ben’s forever-smile faltered, and he vaguely gestured to the set of lockers beside them.

“You’ve… kind of been trying to get into my locker for the past… three days, I think it is.”

Evie’s heart faltered.

“I-I thought you were just confused the first few times. I didn’t want to say anything, you know? But, actually, you do have a locker. It’s just not this one.” He blinked and continued quickly, “and I can show you and everything! I just… don’t want you to go forever lugging your books around.”

Evie’s smile remained placidly in place as she stared at the Prince. It only figured that the locker she’d chosen at random would end up being Ben’s. Because why would the universe give her any gifts? It was easy enough to believe that her Isle luck had continued to plague her in Auradon. 

It took a moment for her to gather the stones for a response. When it came, it was accompanied by a showy set of giggles.

“Of course!” (Giggle.) “This is _your_ locker!” (Giggle.) “Silly me. I just thought the security here was like, super good. You must think I’m crazy.” (Giggle.) (Internal cringe.)

“Not crazy,” Ben hastily assured. Evie wasn’t sure if the smile gracing his lips was one of Princely pandering or genuine kindness. “Just confused. Which I get. I’ve been really busy lately, what with the Coronation coming up and everything. I should have spent more time helping you three get used to it here. I’m really sorry. But if there’s anything I can do for you now, just let me know.”

Evie was so pleasantly surprised by the offer that a genuine laugh fell from her lips – she brought a hand to her mouth to stifle it, eyes widened with surprise. It felt jarringly out-of-place to share a laugh with someone she hardly knew, even if that person was the focus of her affections.

She cleared her throat and brushed her hair behind her ears with a wilting look. “Okay,” she agreed, casually, “thanks.” Then, “what was that about me having a locker?”

This time she was positive that Prince Ben’s grin was genuine. Evie smiled, too, because it felt like the right thing to do, and because things were finally starting to go her way. Given her demeanor and overall appearance, it was no surprise that she’d captured Ben’s attention. Still, she was insulted by the length of time it had taken.

“It’s just right down the hall, actually. Not far from your dorm.”

If Evie weren’t so tempered, she might have said ‘obviously,’ or ‘I know,’ or any indication that she wasn’t half as dim-witted as she was intentionally making herself out to be. But she’d spent the past sixteen years biting her tongue, and she didn’t plan on stopping as much now, so instead she smiled and twirled a string of her hair between her fingers. “Not far from my dorm? Wow. You really know how to treat us VKs.”

Ben nodded but furrowed his eyebrows. “VKs?”

Evie batted her eyelashes at a near furious pace and said, “it means villain kids.” She shrugged. “Just a little thing we like to call ourselves. Of course, we’re all Auradon kids now. The past is in the past. Right, Ben?”

A wry smile sneaked to the corners of his lips and he nodded, slowly. “Uh, yeah. Right.” He opened his mouth to continue, but his attention – as well as Evie’s – was drawn downward at the sound of an electronic beep. Evie watched Ben fish into his pocket and retrieve his phone. Her eyes flitted over him as he opened it and stared at the screen for an amount of time that was, in Evie’s opinion, much too long. She tried to continue smiling through it all. It was easier said than done.

“I’m… so sorry.” Ben flipped his phone closed again and looked back to Evie. “I actually have a fitting. For the Coronation, I totally forgot… my dad is going to freak if I’m not back there in about two minutes.”

Evie’s face fell. “Oh.” The cartoon birds that had been flitting about her head dropped dead as quickly as they’d started singing. “That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Ben insisted. He shook his head and opened one of the notebooks in his hand. He wrote something down, tore it off, and handed it to Evie. Her smile was there again. Finally, a number – some real action.

Her hopes were dashed almost instantly when she read the three-digit code.

“There’s your locker. Like I said, it’s close to your dorm, so you should start looking over there. And we set the code to 99-99-99, so don’t stress about getting it open.” He hesitated, looking as though he wanted to say something, but he smiled again instead. “I’ll see you around, Evie.”

“Uh-huh… see you,” Evie agreed, slowly, her voice lowered as Ben made quick work of turning on his heel and pacing away. She stared at his trail and ripped the paper in her hands without a second thought. The two halves floated to her feet unceremoniously.

The words that swam through her head were never far from her thoughts, but after such a searing failure, they were echoing mercilessly in her mind, louder than ever. _You’re better than you. This is only a preliminary version of yourself, Evie. You can be more – I can show you how._ And so she had. Her mother had shown her just how to improve upon herself. How to look beautiful. Even if it hurt. And Evie loved her for it. But maybe…

She bit her own tongue, hard enough to draw blood. But none came. She’d eased up on the pressure abruptly, leaving nothing but a slow, resonant burn between her teeth. A reminder, maybe. Or maybe something less poetic. Maybe it was just a little pain. Wasn’t that what it came down to?

Evie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and very carefully leaned against the lockers. Ben’s locker. She couldn’t help but feel slightly worthless. She had spent her entire life promising her mother that she would find a prince and become the best version of herself possible. She’d been given all of the necessary tools and means to do so, too. She was beautiful; that much was clear. Which meant that her failure reflected upon something else. Something internal. Something that couldn’t be fixed so easily.

She felt a pang of sorrow and missed her mom for the first time since leaving the Isle. If she could see her daughter now, she’d surely set her straight. At least then Evie would know what to do with herself.

She closed her eyes and sighed. She needed to regroup, before she drove herself crazy.

-

Luckily, the kids at Auradon Prep were scared straight by the idea of a curfew. So much so that, by the time nine o’ clock rolled around, hardly a soul still occupied the library. And it would still be open for two hours, no less.

The only libraries that Evie had ever been inside were loose definitions of the term. She’d been inside spell-book stores, but that was about it. The Isle was short on many amenities, and it seemed that free book-loaning was one of them.

So she was naturally fascinated by the sheer number of volumes lining the walls and shelves as she quietly creeped inside, her heels making no noise on the dull, carpeted floors. She had the unrealistic urge to grab a random book and start reading. She reminded herself that it would probably be uber boring, and used that motivation to take a breath, straighten her shoulders, and purposefully walk further into the cavernous, dimly lit room.

She glanced around at the various sections, ticking them off like markers in her mind. _Ancient history. Middle-Age History. Sports. Celebrities. Fiction – Fantasy._ Evie screwed up her face and sighed, picking up her pace. There had to be a section devoted to modern royalty. Considering the amount of famous couples with children attending Auradon, it only made sense that a registry would exist. Right?

Evie supposed that she wouldn’t know one way or another, but hoped life would perhaps swing her way this time around.

She spent the next ten minutes pacing and then re-tracing her steps. Although Auradon’s library had sections on _Baking_ and _Cleaning_ , which Evie hardly needed help with, they didn’t seem to have any sections on _Royal Families_ or _Which Boys at Auradon are Most Eligible for the Throne_ (though the last one was a pipe dream on her part).

Evie sighed in frustration and stopped in place. She narrowed her eyes and turned to the information desk, which was lit by the dull glow of a single lamp. She hesitated a moment longer before reluctantly pulling herself toward that dull glow, like a moth to a flame, if that moth was tired of walking and in dire need of some aromatherapy.

“Hi there,” she greeted cheerfully, before she had even poked her head over the desk. “I was wondering if you could… oh.”

“Evie?” It was impossible not to notice the way that the band kid’s eyes widened. He nearly knocked his chair over as he stood, sending the desk tipping lamely back and forth as a grin split his face open. “Hey… hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

She shrugged. “It is the library. I read sometimes.”

That was only partially true, but again, it was about upbringing more than anything.

“Of course you do! I didn’t mean to insinuate otherwise, I guess I’m just… glad to see a friendly face.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and Evie drummed her fingers against the desk, an awfully forced smile resting on her lips. “Can I… I mean, how can I… what are you looking for this fine night?”

Evie’s fake smile melted into a genuine look of curiosity. “I’m so glad you asked.” She racked her brain and spoke slowly. “I’m doing a project on… modern royal families? In Auradon, specifically. Obviously, I know about Ben and his family, but there are a lot of questions about other royal lines and, well…” Evie sighed dramatically and rested her head on her palm. “Gee, I just don’t know about any other families. I was wondering where I might find a section on that.”

“Well… you could look in the section on the Modern Era. There’s bound to be some Auradon-specific books in there.”

Evie glanced behind herself in search of the mentioned section, but quickly turned as the other continued, rapidly.

“But! If you really wanna know about, y’know, who is next in line and everything, uh… I could just tell you.” Band Kid shrugged nervously and pushed his glassed back to the bridge of his nose, managing a quick glance upward in Evie’s direction. She smiled sweetly, for once genuinely glad for the kid’s obvious affection for her.

“I’d really appreciate it.”

“Well… you know, there’s no official ranking, because just about everyone here’s got at least a drop of royal blood. My dad swears that we’re somewhere on the list actually, but that makes no sense… he’s Dopey, you know? As in…” he trailed off as Evie gave him a trying smile. Thankfully, he managed to take the hint and cleared his throat. “You know. But everyone know that it would probably be Cinderella’s family up next.”

Evie quirked an interested eyebrow. “Cinderella?”

“Yeah. Rags to riches girl. I mean, woman. She’s got a son with Prince Charming, but he’s… well. The apple fell a little far from the tree, if you know what I mean.”

Evie’s luck had certainly turned around. The news was like music to her ears. She leaned further onto the desk before her and sighed happily, offering the boy an appreciative glance. Teasingly, she said, “is that a reference to my mother?”

The flush that adorned his cheeks was immediately unmistakable. “What? No – no, of course not, I only meant –“

Her laughter broke the silence that hung heavy in the air. It was a magical sound, a kind of magic that was actually allowed at Auradon – but only just. She flipped her hair behind her and bowed her fingers at the boy.

“I’m just kidding…” she trailed off, her tone obviously implying that she had intended to drop a name. Band Kid scrambled.

“Doug,” he supplied, all-too-happily.

“Doug,” Evie finished, making a note to actually remember this time. Although his constant mooning was a little annoying, the kid seemed sweet. And he was helping her finally find her princely match. “So, Doug. What is Cinderella’s son’s name?”

“Chad. Chad Charming. Bit of an asshole, if you ask me.” He colored again, and quickly glanced around the deserted room, which made Evie laugh once more.

“Don’t worry,” she said, lightly pushing herself from the desk. “I won’t tell on you. Promise. Thanks so much for the help, you have no idea how much this will help me finally find –“ Evie cut herself short, realized where she was and who she was talking to, and finished, “- I mean, finally finish my project.”

“Of course,” Doug agreed, nodding wildly. His smile withered slightly. “But if you’re planning on talking to him, I’d think twice. He’s always going on about that Audrey girl. Not really the shiniest needle in the proverbial haystack, if you know what I mean.”

“Audrey? As in, Ben’s cheerleader girlfriend, Audrey?”

“The one and only. He’s like, in love with her, or something. And by love I really mean infatuated. It’s off-putting if you ask me.”

If Evie had been paying attention, she would have noticed Doug go red for the third time since they’d been talking. But she wasn’t paying attention. She was cursing her Isle luck for making her simple task so complicated and frustrating. How was she supposed to woo a prince that was already in love with some other girl? And what made this Audrey girl so amazing that every royal son in Auradon was falling at her feet?

Her good mood deflated like a balloon. “Well. Thanks anyway, Doug.” She offered a parting look and turned.

“Wait! Wait, Evie, I actually wanted to… ask you something.”

Evie paused, turned to look at Doug, and sympathetically smiled. “I’m really tired. Can it wait?”

She could see the disappointment in his eyes. But Doug seemed like a sweet kid, and Evie didn’t want to have to turn him down; she’d rather he decide to quit while he was ahead on his own terms. She gave him credit. He was perhaps the only Isle-goer that had given her a proper chance to be herself. But there were ulterior motives there, too.

If only he could share with Ben some of that unadulterated love and affection.

“Yeah.” Doug settled back into his seat slowly. “It can wait… night, Evie.”

“Good night, Doug,” she replied, and turned on her heel.

She spent the short trip back to her dorm with troubled thoughts. She’d come to Auradon with but one goal, but it seemed as though she would have to play the long game. And yet devoting herself to the pursuit sounded more and more unappealing with the minute. Evie didn’t want to chase; she wanted one of the princes of Auradon to chase her. Wouldn’t that make it so much easier?

Her mother had said it would be different. She had said that Evie had become the best self that she could without royalty attached to her arm. If that were true, her failure was entirely on her. Maybe there was something holding her back… something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Evie’s fingers hesitated on the knob of her room. With a quiet sigh, she opened and closed the door behind her.

Carlos was playing the game that he’d been obsessed with since arriving. Jay was watching him while sorting through a pile of presumably stolen goods.

“’Sup?” Jay looked up with eyebrows raised. “Where you been?”

“Library,” Evie replied.

“Ugh. Why?”

“Wait. Shit!” Carlos punched into the air, the motion corresponding with the on-screen death of a faceless enemy. “Okay, okay. Don’t tell me you’re actually trying? Like, doing homework?”

“I actually am,” Evie said, as she sat on the edge of her bed and started taking off her heels slowly. “But that’s not why I was there. I have my mirror for that, you guys.” She dropped a single clunky heel to the ground, and it made a soft thud on the floor. “It’s this prince business. It’s driving me crazy. How come all of the royal guys at this school are so emotionally unavailable? I mean, come on. It’s me.”

“Idiot!” Carlos jumped high into the air and landed with a grin. “That’s what they are. Idiots. You’re awesome, Evie.”

“Thanks,” she said, removing her second heel with a smile. “I know.”

“Why the worry all of a sudden? I thought you had a plan.” Jay leaned forward with a grin, and Evie threw him a roll of her eyes.

“I did and I do. It’s just… not going as fast as I thought it would.”

“No love at first sight, huh?”

“Something like that.” Evie brushed her fingers through her hair absently before falling back onto her bed. She stared at the ceiling in thought. The sound of Carlos’ game was the soundtrack to her ever-growing existential dread. “What I need is a way to make them stop paying attention to work and other girls and start paying attention to more important things. Like me.”

“You know, you could always try talking to them… normally.” Evie turned to face Jay, who was holding both of his hands up in a sign of pre-emptive surrender. “You don’t have to stoop just ‘cause you want a boyfriend right now, Ev. This place is kinda fucking awesome. I mean, Carlos has his game, I have all this crazy shit. There’s something amazing here for you, too.” There was a brief silence as Jay seemed to consider his words. Finally, he said, “our parents aren’t here to see us. Your mother isn’t here.”

Evie inhaled sharply and turned away. “That’s totally beside any point ever,” she snapped, her mood souring further. She couldn’t bear the look on Jay’s face. Almost like he felt sorry for her – and for what? Because she had a mother who was invested in her future? That didn’t seem so bad to Evie. At least she cared.

She heard a muttered “sorry” and turned on her side.

The weighted quiet, disturbed only by the continuing sounds of Carlos’ video game, dissipated with a low, excited whistle. Evie felt a prick of curiosity but forced herself to remain lying down in silent anger and contemplation. Soon enough, the reason for the noise became overwhelmingly evident.

“Carlos, turn it off.”

“Dude, no way, I’m on level ten. I’ve never gotten this far.”

“Carlos, turn it off! I have something better. One of those Coronation planners had fireworks on them, dude. Fireworks!”

A resounding sound of animated death filled the room, followed by the unmistakable sound of Carlos jumping off from his platform. “Fuck. Yeah. You serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious, and we’re seriously setting these babies off. Right. Now.” The springs of Jay’s bed creaked and groaned as he pushed himself off, and Evie finally pushed herself onto her palms. They were both looking at her with muted trepidation and excitement. She took a breath and sighed.

“Go,” she said. “I just need to think. But if you get expelled, I’m so not going back to the Isle with you two.”

The pair didn’t need any other motivation. With wide grins and unabated laughter, they bounded out the door and left it slamming back onto its hinges. Evie stared at the wooden paneling of the ornate door for much longer than necessary, lost in her own thoughts, feeling stupid and tired and truly disheartened for the first time since she’d arrived. She didn’t want to be inside of her dorm, moping over a pair of princes that couldn’t care less about her. She wanted to be with Jay and Carlos. She wanted to be setting off fireworks. She wanted to be happy, with her friends. She felt a deep regret that she’d told them to go on without her, and had the brief but childish feeling that she could cry.

With her luck, they would all end up getting expelled for setting them off, anyway. She almost expected to be sent home regardless of her abstaining participation in their fireworks show. A mistake on part of one of the VKs, or even their parents, stained the reputation of them all; that much was abundantly clear. It was one of the reasons the Headmistress’ daughter was so terrified of them all. It was ever-so-hypocritical in Evie’s opinion, given that Fairy Godmother herself had been known to dabble in some illicit magic, once upon a time.

Evie jolted up in her bed.

The Headmistress. Fairy Godmother.

She was pushing herself off of the bed before she’d had time to process the beginnings of her plan (though it was more of a faint hope). Her fingers were flying through the debris scattered across Jay’s bed, but she only came up with a few pocket-watches and what appeared to be a teenage boy’s diary. Evie dropped to her knees and shoved the bed-skirt up, her eyes scanning the undersides of Jay’s bed. Her first observation was one of horror; she had no idea how Jay had managed to dirty the floor up so much already. There were candy wrappers, wadded up pieces of paper, and various other useless pieces of junk strewn recklessly about, including Doug’s retainer. But Evie didn’t actually care about any of that.

She only cared about a thick, leather-bound book, lying innocently near the bottom of the foot of the bed.

“Hell yeah,” Evie whispered. She plunged her hand into the overwhelming grossness and retrieved the book before throwing it open on the bed. She nestled into the comforters of Jay’s bed and began scanning the pages, her grin growing wider by the moment.

“How to make your enemies suffer,” she read aloud, in just a whisper. “Holy shit. Fairy Godmother, you’ve been holding out on us…” The rest of the pages she flipped through appeared equally promising. ‘How to destroy your inhibitions.’ ‘How to persuade your enemies.’ ‘How to bend the elements to your will.’ Evie could hardly believe what she was reading. This book, filled with maleficent and evil magic, owned by the one and only Fairy Godmother? Either the Headmistress of Auradon had some explaining to do, or Jay had managed to catch her while moving the book to a more secure location. Although it was probably the latter, Evie found a certain amount of enjoyment in imagining the dainty woman trying to use any of the spells the book contained.

Her eyes coasted from page to page, looking for the slightest hint of a recipe that she could actually use. As amusing as she found some of the pages, the red and black ink also inspired a sort of trepidation inside of her. If this book were to fall into the wrong hands…

Let’s just say the Isle of the Lost would have a field day.

If any of it actually worked, that is.

Evie flipped another page and stopped short. The browning parchment had been replaced by a charred, all-black set of pages. The writing was completely illegible now, and Evie had a feeling it had always been so. She slowly flipped to the next page to find the same all-black set of instructions. She took a deep breath and continued flipping, more frantically as the blackened pages progressed.

Just as she’d started to lose hope, one quick flip brought her back to a regular page. She checked the next side and found that the next set of pages was equally charred and unreadable. She furrowed her eyebrows. If she didn’t know any better, she might have said that she was meant to find this exact page.

“How to acquire your heart’s greatest desire,” she said, and this time, it was in a complete whisper. Evie trailed a finger across the page and expelled a short, shaky breath. She didn’t realize she’d even been holding it in.

Her eyes fell to a short blurb underneath the heading.

‘Not for the faint of heart. Not for the emotionally undetermined. Not for the intellectually unstimulated. Not for the average man or woman. Herein lies the path to a Demon, the Demon, whose bondage remains questionable so long as you remain unfulfilled. Be warned: the Demon has powers beyond that of any mortal or magic being on this earth. It is only the magic contained within these pages that keeps the Demon bound to earthly ability. Be cautious; for the Demon grants not the wishes of reckless youth or impulsive decision, but of long-held inhibition and deep wanting. You will not be given what you thought, but you shall be given exactly what you want. Summon at own risk.’

“Holy shit,” Evie repeated.

Her gaze continued downward to a set of instructions.

‘1 drop human blood,  
1 fire ember, still dying,  
Upon the sigil of the Demon, carved into the space of summoning,  
And accompanied by the following words:  
“I call thee, Mal, daughter of evil,  
I conjure thee, Mal, queen of the under,  
I evoke thee, Mal,  
Come to me, Mal,  
Rise in physical form once again,  
And grant me your wicked ways.”’

Evie felt a shiver roll down her spine. She looked around, very aware of herself, feeling as though she was being watched. But she was alone, of course, staring at a book. A clock in the hall struck midnight, and Evie cleared her throat as she stood.

“Okay, Evie, you can do this,” she muttered to herself. She walked to her bed and fished out a sharpie. She was hoping that a loose interpretation of ‘carving’ would be accepted, because she didn’t think the Auradon administration would appreciate a permanent memento of her attempt at summoning an all-powerful demon.

Although, she supposed, if things went south, she might be killed and then it wouldn’t matter, anyway. She laughed nervously to herself and uncapped the sharpie with a lick of her lips.

She returned to the open book and brought it back to her own bed. She stared at the space before her for a moment. Evie reached cautiously forward and slowly pushed her bed over by about a foot, exposing the clean undersides. There – now she could cover the symbol. Worst case scenario, it wouldn’t wash off. Then she could keep it a secret, at least until Carlos decided to snoop. And then Evie could explain it away and they would all have a laugh, because this wasn’t going to work, but it was funny to try, right?

“Right,” she said to no one.

She made quick work of copying the sigil to the floor. She’d spent all of her life tracing and making designs, both in her head and on paper, so the drawing part was hardly a challenge. The rest of it, on the other hand…

She cleared her throat and spun herself in a circle, examining her friend’s beds. Surely one of them had brought matches. She crossed the room back to Jay’s bed, but hesitated. She’d already stuck her hand into his mess more times than she’d like to. With a distasteful look back, she walked to Carlos’ and began rifling through his bedside drawer.

Most of the shelves were all but empty, filled with unfinished assignments and tubs of colored goo. The third drawer, however, contained the jackpot; not only had he shoved all of his clothes into the single drawer, which Evie found endlessly amusing, but Carlos had thankfully brought a stash of small, unlit matches, the likes of which were strewn about his multicolored jackets.

“Bingo!” Evie grabbed two matches and the accompanying matchbox, shutting the drawer closed quietly before crossing the room again. She stood for a moment, examining the sigil that she had copied. She had expected hesitation to set in. Instead, she felt her resolve harden. She had all of the tools, and nothing to lose but a brief moment of pride. And it wasn’t as though anyone else would witness her failure.

She lit the match without a second thought. The stick alit on the first attempt, making Evie’s heart skip a beat. She’d expected to try a few times before actually managing to start a real fire. She guessed that the world was scarily in tune with the seriousness of her desire.

“Okay then.” Evie stared at the fire as it crawled before her eyes. She brought it closer to her lips and closed her eyes, blowing it out with a single, cool breath. Her eyes fluttered back open and she dropped the dying set of embers without so much as a second glance.

Now there was a clock ticking. Evie opened her own set of drawers and pulled her measuring tape out. She butted the drawer close with her hip and pinched the silver edge of the tape between her fingers. She carefully presented her thumb over the sigil, closed her eyes, and brought the sharp edge to the soft flesh as forcefully as she could manage. The pinprick of pain made her grimace. She opened one eye and was relieved to see that she’d broken skin. Evie threw the measuring tape aside and squeezed her thumb over the symbol with a look of dull pain.

A single drop fell to the ground, and Evie might have been high on the moment, but she was sure the earth below her had shaken and the red spot on the ground was sizzling as though sitting on a bed of hot coals.

She began shaking her thumb and leaned over to grab the book, mouth following her eyes as she read aloud. She forced all of the feeling and want that she could manage into what she was saying.

“I call thee, Mal, daughter of evil. I conjure thee, Mal, queen of the under. I evoke thee, Mal. Come to me, Mal. Rise in physical form once again, and grant me your wicked ways.”

Silence. Evie looked around with wildly blinking eyes. Wasn’t this the part where the ground broke asunder and some horrible spirit came to steal her soul?

For a moment, she thought she heard the sound of feet advancing toward the door. If they were there, they quickly receded, leaving Evie to swallow and begin again, more forcefully this time.

“I call thee, Mal, daughter of evil. I conjure thee, Mal, queen of the under. I evoke thee, Mal. Come to me, Mal. Rise in physical form once again, and grant me your wicked ways!”

A heart-wrenching crack came from somewhere outside the window and Evie’s heart was bounding like a rabbit’s. It was the fireworks. Jay and Carlos were outside – they were setting off fireworks – they would be caught any minute now and they would all be sent back to the Isle, that’s how the story would end –

But something was happening inside, too. Something endlessly more quiet than a pile of fireworks but maybe, just maybe, endlessly more exciting and endless. And Evie was not only a part of it, she was creating it, and she could feel that much stirring within her, motivating her. And she wanted it to happen, more than ever, now. And she was all but yelling –

“I call thee, Mal, daughter of evil! I conjure thee, Mal, queen of the under! I evoke thee, Mal! Come to me, Mal! Rise in physical form once again, and grant me your wicked ways!”

Evie gasped as she felt something take hold of her. It was just as real as a set of strong hands lifting her upwards and off the ground, but there were no arms around her and she was weightless. Her eyes widened as she saw the floor spinning beneath her, further and further away as the seconds turned into hours.

But she was dropped back to the ground as quickly as she had risen, only this time, her vision was completely obscured. It was like someone had turned out the lights, and it was too dark to see, but she was blinded by light at the same time. Purple light, brighter than the Auradon sun, brighter than the dorm room had been that first day, surrounding her, and she was coughing with the weight of it.

She covered her mouth, but as soon as her fingers reached her lips, the tickle in her throat disappeared. The purple had dissipated, leaving Evie to blink away the remnants of unseeing. She took a steadying breath. The air was cool and gratifying to her worn-out lungs. She exhaled deeply and came to her feet, now standing just over the figure that had appeared in the purple mist.

Evie screamed.

The figure smiled.

“Well hello there,” it – she – said. And then, in a sing-song voice that chilled Evie’s bones, the demon said, “I’m baaaaaaack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW! EXPOSITION! LONG AS FUCK!
> 
> Thanks for reading. Here's to hoping the next installation shall come in less than two years' time ;)


	2. Trying to stay afloat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can’t make a prince fall in love with you, spell him. If you can’t spell him, get someone else to do it for you. If you can’t get someone else to do it for you, get some other demon to do it for you, preferably one with jarringly green eyes, long, purple hair, the sickly sweet smell of strawberries clinging to her, and a tendency to speak her mind even, and especially when, you’d rather she wouldn’t.
> 
> Or: how Evie’s unintentional fuck-up ends up being exactly what she needed and, perhaps more dangerously, everything she wanted.

Evie flew to cover her mouth with her hands, dropping the open book in the process. It fell to the floor and _popped!_ against the hardwood there. Just another sound that would wake all of Auradon – but that was the furthest thing from her mind, now.

“This place is nice,” the demon observed. Her eyes cased the room. “Definitely a step-up from the last pile of garbage I was summoned into.”

“You…”

Evie swallowed around the word that had been forming in her throat. The garbled noise of her failed sentence was uncomfortably loud in the silence, and apparently noteworthy enough to garner the other’s attention.

The demon’s gaze fell full upon her and an ice-cold shiver ran down Evie’s spine. She wished that it was possible to squirm out from under a set of eyes.

“Go ahead. Take your time. You’re doing great. They usually pass out, at first.”

In the weighted moment, Evie found it hard to discern whether the girl was being patronizing or sincerely impressed by her grit. Either way, she was going to need more than just a moment to process what she was seeing, what she had done, and how utterly fucked she may or may not have been.

(Probably very, very fucked.)

The figure was standing in the center of the sigil, her hip jutting outward, a gloved hand casually splayed against her own side as she surveyed the room like it already belonged to her. Evie thought, in a way, it already did. She had long, dark purple hair that curled in upon itself at the ends. She was covered from head-to-toe in tight, monochromatic leather that matched the color of her hair perfectly. Her heels were tall and loud, tall and loud enough to give her at least four extra inches, which brought her only a few inches above Evie. She was tiny, physically speaking, but the weight of her eyes was more than imposing enough to compensate for the girl’s petite frame.

Except, she wasn’t a girl, was she? It was easy enough to think otherwise when admiring (noticing, Evie corrected herself, _noticing_ ) her more obvious features. But one look into the girl’s eyes told otherwise.

Because her eyes were green. Not the calming, unique seafoam green that Evie had become partial to in her own designs. The girl’s eyes were _jarringly_ green. Evie had never seen a color so surreal. The hue was just short of neon, the sort of color that only belonged on fluorescent screens or bright jewelry, and certainly never, never next to a pair of black pupils. It reminded her of the grass in Auradon on a bright, sunny day. Of course, when she looked into those eyes, she didn’t feel a warm spattering of sun on her face or the soft tickling of grass blades on her bare legs; no. When she looked into them, she felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

And then there was the most troubling development of all. Since the figure’s appearance, the generic smell of clean linen had been replaced with the smell of strawberries. She could feel the scent just as strongly as smell it, making her eyes tear up with the strength of it. It was an overly ripe smell, as though the strawberries in question had been left on the vine for years, never given the chance to lie down and die on their own. It wasn’t the smell of something sweet. It was the smell of something dead.

Evie felt like she might pass out after all.

“I… didn’t think it would work,” she whispered.

“Such little faith in you humans,” the demon said, her voice low and rumbling. She was staring at the ground and kicking the floor, her heels no doubt scuffing the wood. Evie was just relieved that those green eyes were trained somewhere that wasn’t her. “Didn’t you read my disclaimer? ‘Not for the faint of heart?’”

“I’m not… I’m not faint of heart.” Evie swallowed indignantly and then repeated, her voice quivering less now, “I’m not.”

“Well, you’re looking a little feint to me.” The girl’s eyes met Evie’s again, and her heart stopped her in chest.

“I’m not feint, either,” she managed, voice shaky but louder.

“Good. I hate damsels in distress. I have to hand it to you, though… an Auradon girl, summoning _me_?” Those green eyes seemed to shine. They darted to the book in the floor and then back to Evie. “My oh my, how did I ever get so lucky?”

“I’m not even an ‘Auradon girl,’” Evie muttered.

“Yeah. I can see that, Blue.”

Evie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously.

“But you’re here in Auradon anyway, which means I’m here. Which means you’re in need of my services. Luckily for you, I’m in the mood to make a deal.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together in momentary confusion. It took a moment for her mind to place the meaning behind the girl’s words.

A deal. Evie bit the inside of her cheek, hard. Hadn’t she thought this plan through at all? Of course the demon would ask to strike a deal. Even growing up with the idea that demons were fictional, Evie knew that they worked on a system of deals. They were hardly granting deep, dark desires out of the goodness of their non-existent hearts.

But truthfully, she hadn’t thought her plan through at all. If she had, there wouldn’t be a demon standing five feet away from her in the first place.

“Um, okay… What kind of deal?”

“The kind where you make it worth my while to grant you your deepest, darkest desire. This isn’t a charity, sweetheart.”

“Right,” Evie said, ignoring the flare of annoyance that accompanied the pet name. It was tempered by the resounding, drum-like pace of her heart. She folded her fingers together behind her back in an attempt to stop sweating so profusely and racked her brain for something that a demon would find even half-useful. The demon raised an eyebrow impatiently and Evie’s eyes met the ceiling.

“I don’t have anything worth much. I could design you something, maybe, or… do something about your hair –“

“You’re not entirely right about that,” the demon interrupted, and she took another short step forward. Her toes were now lined against the outer edge of the sigil.

With another skip of her heart, Evie realized that she had been attempting to smudge away the sharpie with the heel of her boots.

Her voice low, her eyes glowing, and her lips upturned into a devilishly pleased smile, the demon said, “You have a body.”

Evie felt blood rush rapidly to her face as she managed, “ _what?_ ”

“You have a body,” the girl repeated, as nonchalantly as she would have said ‘good morning.’ “I’m looking at it right now, aren’t I?”

“I – you – I don’t understand, when you say that, I don’t understand – I mean, _yes_ ,” Evie ground out, not even bothering to hope that her apple-red skin was obscured by the dim lights in the room. “Yes I _do_ , but I don’t understand what that could possibly have to do with… anything!”

“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “Put your shirt back on. I need you to fetch something for me. I’d do it myself but I can only go where my summoner goes.”

Evie felt a rush of relief and confusion, sandwiched by another wave of embarrassment. “Oh,” she intoned, her voice breaking as she swallowed hard and closed her eyes for a moment. She willed the flush of her cheeks to subside. “Right… obviously… um, okay, what do you want me to get for you?”

She was too heartened by the change in conversation to thoroughly analyze the possibilities behind ‘fetching’ something for a demon. Whatever it was would be ten times better than the implications she’d misinterpreted.

“Nothing big. My last summoner was a douchebag. Pardon the language, kid.”

Evie screwed her face up at the patronizing tone and re-opened her eyes. “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” the girl shrugged dismissively, “Two? Anyway, the asshat decided to cripple my magic. Now I’m bound to my summoner and this form. Which means I can’t have any fun. Not to mention I can’t make your dreams come true. Not without a spell to undo what he did to me.”

Evie ignored the insult and focused on the demon’s story, though her left eye had started to twitch from the annoyance. She’d grown up defending herself unequivocally; she wasn’t used to being pushed around. But when the pushing-around was dealt out by a demon, Evie had to guess ‘taking it’ was the only option. Even if that demon was apparently stunted.

“Just… tell me what you want me to do,” she decided.

“I want you to do us both a solid and find the one thing that can undo this bullshit,” the girl said, before tilting her head to the side. “Fairy Godmother’s wand should do the trick.”

Evie stared at the other incredulously. “You want me to steal Fairy Godmother’s wand.”

“More like… borrowing, really. I need that wand.”

Evie blinked and worried the inside of her cheek. She knew of the wand and the power it held, but had never bothered herself with worrying over the specifics. Auradon might have been a magical place, but magic was no longer part of the curriculum. Even mentioning it drew negative reactions, so Evie figured that access to a magical object as powerful as Fairy Godmother’s wand wasn’t going to be open to the public. Not to mention the fact that she had no idea where it was held, stealing it would be a one-way ticket back to the Isle – if not much, much worse.

Though Evie could hardly imagine worse than returning to the Isle.

“No.” Evie shook her head, finally. “No. I can’t do that. Something else, please.”

The sigil exploded in a cacophony of purple as the demon flung herself against its side. Her fingers caught in thin air, curling in upon themselves into two sets of claws. Evie staggered backwards in surprise.

When the demon spoke, her voice was scratchy and low yet loud enough to echo through the entire room.

“’Something else, please?’ You really don’t know who you’re bargaining with here, Blue. How about you get me that FUCKING wand and I won’t kill you right HERE and NOW? Does that sound like a FAIR trade to you?”

Though Evie could feel hot, sudden tears of fear welling behind her eyes, she kept them wide and fixed upon the girl before her. “You… you…” she darted her gaze over the sigil and shook her head again, words tumbling out of her mouth without proper forethought. “You can’t. You can’t hurt me. Not in there. Can you?”

The girl returned to normal as quickly as she’d transformed. “True,” she replied easily. The change in tone was enough to give Evie whiplash. “I can’t hurt you. I can’t leave, either. I can stand here until your friends get back from their silly fireworks show and kill them instead. How’s that?”

Evie’s widened eyes snapped to the dorm room’s door. She nearly tripped over herself as she ran to press herself against its front. She wrapped her manicured fingers tightly around the knob. Her breathing was uneven as she turned around, pushing her full force back against the wooden panels. In her mind’s eye she could see Jay and Carlos walking through the halls, reds and yellows and blues still in their eyes, laughing, unknowingly walking in on the two, questions bubbling in their throats, and then…

She didn’t even question how the girl had known. Was there any reason to? (She really should have paid more attention to that warning.)

“No, no, no,” Evie insisted, breathlessly, “no, you can’t. Please. I’ll make whatever deal you want, okay?”

“Oh, yay!” The demon’s smile turned flat as she stared Evie down and offered two dainty claps of her hands. “The wand,” she deadpanned.

Evie’s fingers drew against the knob with a coppery sound as the two stared each other down. The moment was synchronized to the throbbing, painful beat of Evie’s heart, choreographed to the image in her mind of Jay and Carlos.

She hadn’t thought about Prince Ben or Chad Charming, Cinderella’s son, since the conversation’s inception.

But now her mother was flashing into her mind’s eye. _You can be better, Evie._ Her wide eyes turned downward in hot shame. Even if she’d summoned the demon for herself, turning to those thoughts after her friends’ lives had been threatened seemed like an extremely shitty thing to do. But Evie couldn’t help it. She saw the faces of her friends alongside the face of her mother, telling her she was a screw-up, that the problem was _her_.

“Okay,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll get the wand.”

“So let’s make it a deal.”

“What do I do?”

“First, you’re going to step away from the door and break this sigil.”

Evie’s stomach flipped. She locked eyes with the demon, who simply raised an eyebrow in response.

“Waste time if you want. I hope your friends out there have plenty of ammunition. I have all eternity to stare at you, but those two? I’d say they’re down to minutes at this point.”

Evie stepped away from the door reluctantly, her hand on the knob dropping last as she moved closer to the sigil and the girl trapped inside. Her eyes, swimming with doubt, remained on the figure before her. The demon seemed intent on staring her down, all with a satisfied smile. Her eyes followed Evie’s every move hungrily.

Evie only stopped once she’d reached the outer side of the sigil’s line, mere inches from the other, her toes pointed directly at the demon’s own. Her eyes remained locked on the girl’s for an extended moment before they fluttered downward. She expelled a small breath and forced her leg forward.

Her white sock slid across the wooden floor, markedly pale against the black of the sharpie and the wood of the floor. The first stroke did no good in removing the sharpie marks. Evie huffed and stood on her tip-toes, putting more pressure on the floor as she scrubbed. Her eyebrows knit together as her toe drew away without so much as a black smudge adorning its undersides.

“Seriously?” Evie jumped at the sound of the girl’s voice so close to her ear. Now that she was only inches away, she could intimately hear the drawling of each syllable. “Can we skip this and get to the part where you try something useful? ‘Not for the intellectually unstimulated.’ Are you sure you read my disclaimer?”

“Yeah,” Evie snapped, her voice low and hard, almost masking the tremor. She sounded much braver than she felt. “I read it. ‘Your bondage remains questionable while I’m unfulfilled.’ Something like that, right? So your fate is kind of in my hands right now.”

The flash of ire in the demon’s eyes made Evie rethink her words with another twist of her stomach. All the same, she felt a flicker of pride. She ignored both feelings and took a deep, steading breath, before promptly dropping to her feet.

She stuck her thumb into her mouth and wet the tip. The taste of iron swam over her tongue, but she ignored that, too. She braced her other palm against the floor, looked up at the demon once more, and forcefully pushed the wet tip of her thumb back and forth across the dorm floor.

The sharpie marks bled away with a loud squeak, leaving a thumb-sized trail of unmarked floor in the previously unbroken sigil. Evie’s heart stilled in her chest, her eyes trained on the heels that remained mere inches from her face.

She felt a cool, slow rush of air down her back.

She balled her fists on the ground and felt the hair on her arm prickling as it stood on its end. Still, the legs before her did not move.

Slowly, slowly, Evie pulled herself up and off the ground and drew herself to her full height.

The demon now towered over her and the smile on her face could be described as nothing but wicked.

Out of the corner of her eye, Evie saw the girl’s hand rise in the air beside her. Her fingers were curling again, this time flexing around the air. The very tips of those fragile fingers crossed the line of the sigil, and something flashed in the demon’s eyes. With the same cautious speed, her hand bridged the gap between herself and Evie. The tips of the demon’s fingers brushed Evie’s cheek, sending another shiver down her spine.

Carefully, the girl tucked a strand of Evie’s hair behind her ear.

“Good,” she cooed softly, in a voice that made Evie’s face feel hot. The girl’s gaze was so blinding that Evie was sure she’d be seeing the piercing green color behind her own eyelids for months. “Was that so hard?”

Evie waited for her vision to go black, or for the demon to disappear, but she remained in place, close enough that leaning forward ever-so-slightly would bring them chest to chest. It was simultaneously distracting and intimidating. Her breathing was shallow.

“What now?” she whispered, and damn it, her voice did _not_ falter.

“Now?” The girl acted like she was mulling the question around in her head before she answered, “Now we seal the deal with a kiss.”

“A kiss?” Evie was so shocked that she stumbled backwards, all the while stuttering, “but we – I’m not – and you’re – and –“

To Evie’s horror, the demon laughed, a throaty but not unfeminine noise that was accompanied by a grin. “Oh, please. I’m only kidding.”

The childish words contrasted heavily with the foreboding that sat upon Evie’s chest and made it difficult to breathe. She blinked, equal parts anger and confusion coursing through her body. She had been terrified of the girl before her, she had been enraged by her, and now she had been mocked; Evie wasn’t sure which she detested most. She still recalled the visceral reaction she had had to the demon’s suggestion of hurting Jay and Carlos. That feeling continued to dance around her stomach, now intermingled with a raw sort of rage.

“What?” she demanded, shrilly. The color in her cheeks remained. “That’s… not funny! You just threatened to kill my friends! Is that some kind of joke to you?”

“It’s a little funny.” The girl sighed, long and wistful, and shook her head. “I’ll tell you what. I’m nicer than most demons, so I’m going to do you a solid. Let’s say, the wand in exchange for one deep, dark desire, straight from your hormonal heart, instead of the lives of you and your friends. How does that sound?”

The demon’s changing moods were sending Evie’s head spinning. The past hour had been a roller coaster of emotions, one that was starting to fatigue her. She realized then that her reason for summoning the demon in the first place had fallen by the wayside in all of her grand fear and surprise.

Her mother’s words echoed in Evie’s mind again, and this time, her mind wondered to Ben. Prince Ben, with whom she’d been so desperate to be that she had willingly summoned the malevolent force of a girl standing before her now. A force that had threatened to kill her best friends (as well as herself, though that sent a different sort of fear through her; a less important fear, nonetheless). Twenty minutes ago, being with Ben had been the most important thing to her. Now, she supposed making it out alive was; though being with a Prince still ranked highly.

She felt wildly selfish for thrilling at the idea that she could have her cake and eat it, too. Of course, that was only if the demon before her didn’t decide to kill her in the meantime.

“Why should I trust you?” Evie glowered at the girl. “There’s gonna be a catch.”

“The catch is that you do it before I get bored and change my mind,” the girl replied, sourly, and Evie believed that she meant every word she’d said.

Evie attempted to shove her hurt aside and focus on the task at hand. She exhaled sharply and frowned.

“Fine. Okay. Deal.”

The demon smiled, and Evie noticed that she had distractingly plump lips, but she also noticed that she had taken a small, breaching step outside of the sigil and towards her. How hadn’t she noticed that?

The girl extended her arm and Evie eyed it. For a moment, she stared dumbly at the other’s long, pale fingers, unsure of what was expected of her.

“Fairy Godmother’s wand in exchange for your deepest, darkest desire. Non-refundable. To the death. Now shake on it, sweetheart.”

Evie’s gaze darted between the demon’s shining eyes and her steady hand. And though she liked to pretend that she needed to think, the truth was that she had little choice in the matter. And wasn’t she getting what she’d wanted, anyway?

Evie grimaced and whispered “deal.” She slapped her hand into the demon’s and threaded their fingers together, shaking violently as she glared at the figure before her. The other looked back at her in equal intensity, though a pleased grin was on her face.

Inside, Evie felt a faint stirring. She didn’t dare look away from the other, even as she felt a lightness fill her entire body. For a moment, she was sure that she would begin to rise again. But the demon’s eyes flickered a deeper shade of green and then returned to normal, as if nothing had changed at all. And then the moment was over, and the deal was done.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Blue,” she drawled, smirked, and gently let go of Evie’s hand in one swift motion. “Now move the bed back before the rat pack gets here.”

Evie took one long glance at the girl before curling her lip and moving past her. It felt wrong to turn her back on the other, but Evie had no choice. Not when she had other work to do. If Carlos and Jay were to get back too quickly, there would be some hard questions asked that Evie wasn’t fond of answering – now or hopefully ever.

“I have a name,” she muttered sourly.

“What was that?”

“I said –“

“Oh, no, Blue. I heard what _you_ said.” Evie nearly jumped; the demon had advanced on her back as she moved the bed, and was now standing only a foot away from her. Evie turned and glared at her. The girl seemed all-too-pleased with herself. “I meant, what was that sound coming from the hallway?”

Faintly, she could hear the ringing of laughter. Unfortunately familiar laughter.

She dug her nails into the soft skin of her palm. “Shit.” Evie began pulling her bed faster, hurriedly attempting to cover the broken sigil marked into the ground. Each squeak of the bedframe or scrape of the post against the floor sent her cursing again as she desperately tried to put things straight. “Shit shit shitshitshitshit –“

“Quite the mouth on you.”

“You can’t be here,” Evie hissed. She straightened up to see that the girl had taken the liberty of sitting on her bed, crossing her arms and legs, all while watching her attempt to move the bed with a blissful look. She grit her teeth and cursed the figure before her, herself, and anyone else that came to mind in the moment, not foregoing her two fast-approaching friends.

“You obviously haven’t been listening to me,” the girl replied, completely unbothered. “I can only go where my summoner goes.”

“WHAT?” Evie covered her own mouth, glanced at the door, then fixed her stare on the demon again. “What?” She repeated, much quieter. “No. You can’t be here!”

“No, I ‘can’t’ be anywhere else.”

Evie would have responded, but the sound of the door opening interrupted her. She jumped away from her bed and flew to the center of the room, where she crossed her arms on a whim and started smiling as though she’d recently won the lottery.

At the last moment she noticed the Headmistress’ book, still split open in the floor. Evie gave the volume a hefty kick that sent it flying under her bed.

“- I saw him, Jay. Kid is up to some weird shit. Just because he’s from Auradon, doesn’t mean he can’t be shady. I bet plenty of kids here have stories that would scare Harry Hook.”

“You clearly haven’t met Harry, then.” Jay filed into the room and kicked the door shut behind Carlos’s small frame. He opened his mouth to elaborate, but stopped short.

Jay and Carlos simultaneously faltered, both in speech and movement, mirrored looks of trepidation and confusion on their faces. In response to their raised eyebrows, Evie’s grin only grew wider.

“You guys!” She squealed. “You’re… back!”

“Ugh,” the demon said. The tail-end of her remark was overpowered by Evie coughing loudly. She patted her chest dramatically.

It was impossible to not notice the way their eyes met. Evie could sense the questions there, but chose to ignore them in favor of the false hope that she could pretend there wasn’t a demon girl sitting on her bed. Jay and Carlos were plenty oblivious most of the time, after all. She was hoping to take advantage of that fact.

Carlos was the first to break the silence. “Are you mad, Evie?”

“What?” Evie raised her eyebrows even higher. Genuine confusion mingled with her heightened display of emotion. “Why would I be mad?”

“I didn’t mean to piss you off with that thing about your mom, okay?” Jay advanced further into the room. He had torn his eyes away from Evie and moved to sit on his own bed. One of his hands wrapped around the posts. “I said I’m sorry already.”

In the madness that had ensued after the boys’ exit, Evie had completely forgotten the state in which they’d left. She cursed herself.

“I don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Carlos added, swinging against the pole of his own bed. “But… I guess I am, too.”

“You guys!” Evie’s eyes flitted to her bed and she licked her lips.

Why hadn’t they said anything about the purple-haired girl sprawled out on her bed like she owned the place?

“You guys,” she repeated, much more steadily this time. The racing of her heart had subsided to an almost manageable level. Evie didn’t know what was happening, but she was rolling with it, regardless. “I’m not mad. I mean it.”

Both Carlos and Jay studied her for a prolonged moment. Then, Jay shrugged and fell back onto his bed.

Carlos looked to the other boy and Evie with a peculiar look. “Aight,” he finally decided, falling back with a satisfied thump.

Evie remained in the center of the room, her attention flitting between the two boys. She expected them to roll up in their comforters and start laughing hysterically about the mysterious fourth presence, perhaps start asking questions, but neither made any indication that they planned to move for the rest of the night. In fact, Evie was almost certain she could hear the beginning of a markedly Carlos-like snore coming from the other edge of the room.

When the girl spoke up again, her voice sounded strange and out-of-place. Neither Jay nor Carlos stirred at its volume. “It’s a cloaking spell. You can see me, but they can’t. One of the few things I can still do without that wand. Call it a show of good faith. For now.”

Tears welled up in Evie’s eyes. She couldn’t tell if they were tired tears, relieved tears, terrified tears, or some mixture of them all. Regardless, she blinked them back, feeling foolish.

“There it is.” Evie turned back to the demon on her bed, who had crawled under her covers and was now resting her head on the back of the headboard with her eyes closed.

“I’ll give it to you, Blue. They usually cry _way_ sooner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Didn't even take two years!
> 
> Thanks for the comments. I appreciate you guys, a lot.


	3. Noose around the throat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can’t make a prince fall in love with you, spell him. If you can’t spell him, get someone else to do it for you. If you can’t get someone else to do it for you, get some other demon to do it for you, preferably one with jarringly green eyes, long, purple hair, the sickly sweet smell of strawberries clinging to her, and a tendency to speak her mind even, and especially when, you’d rather she wouldn’t.
> 
> Or: how Evie’s unintentional fuck-up ends up being exactly what she needed and, perhaps more dangerously, everything she wanted.

The day after Evie met the demon who would unwittingly change her life, she learned two things.

First, she learned that demons didn’t need sleep.

Either that, or the purple-headed demon was an anomaly in her refusal to blink all the night through, be it for reasons concerning pride, pure evil, or a myriad of other motivations that demons may concern themselves with. More likely, though, was the first possibility – demons didn’t need sleep. Evie couldn’t think of a reason that they would need sleep, after all, and she certainly hadn’t noticed the other nodding off at any point (and she would have definitely noticed; Evie had been checking every few seconds by cracking her lids open ever-so-slightly).

This was the more problematic option. Evie doubted that she could nab Ben and steal Fairy Godmother’s wand in less than twenty-four hours, which meant that she’d be spending another night under the watchful gaze of the demon… which meant that she would be having another restless night. If Evie went too many nights without sleep, she would end up in dire need of the demon’s full array of powers. She could hardly get Ben’s attention on a normal day; if she didn’t have her beauty rest, he’d have no reason to take a second look, much less talk to her.

Then there was the second lesson she learned, which was that shaking the demon’s hand had been the greatest mistake of her life. This fact would be proven true countless times in her mind. It would also be proven extraordinarily untrue, eventually, but only once.

To her new companion’s annoyance, Evie had insisted on going to class the next morning, despite the newly formed bags under her eyes. (She was running on about two hours of sleep. But Evie’s mother had once told her that dwelling on a lack of sleep would only further worry the skin under her eyes, so she had pushed that thought to the back of her mind; considering the amount she had to think about, it wasn’t terribly difficult.)

But the demon, though infinitely more physically powerful than Evie, could do nothing to stop her from waltzing out the door. Even worse, she was helpless to fight her own movement. As soon as Evie had stepped out of the dorm, the demon had appeared by her side with a malicious look. That, paired with the fact that the girl was crossing her arms and pouting (honest to goodness _pouting_ ), suggested that the movement was not by choice.

The sight would have made Evie laugh, if it didn’t also mean she’d be spending her classes babysitting the girl.

That was the morning.

By afternoon, the demon had apparently forgotten her initial woes and completely embraced their unfortunate circumstances.

As the only one who could see the girl, Evie knew it wouldn’t do to carry a full conversation with each other in plain view of others; that did nothing to stop the girl from attempting to hammer out every last detail of their non-existent plan to steal the wand, particularly around groups of people.

“Ask him about the wand,” the girl demanded in third period, when the entire room was silent besides the rhythmic scrawling of pencil against paper.

Evie, studiously writing out molar conversions, ignored her. 

Beside her, Doug peered over her shoulder curiously. Evie noticed the look and quickly sighed aloud, dropping her pencil to cover the equation she’d just finished. “This is so hard,” she professed, helplessly, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the numerous equations that she’d already managed to solve.

The demon groaned.

In fourth period, Evie strategically chose a seat in the back row. Audrey, sitting in the very front row, watched her take her seat like a mountain lion with prey in its sights. Sometimes, Evie thought the girl hated her more with each passing day, if only because Evie had given her no outright reason to do so. She was sure the girl had expected Evie, Jay and Carlos to be every inch the villains their parents had been; when that mold didn’t fit, she’d hated them because they defied her expectations, instead.

Although her presence was a nuisance and Evie planned to steal her boyfriend, she couldn’t say she hated Audrey. Even if the girl was, inadvertently, one of the reasons that Evie was currently seated next to a demon.

Very, very inadvertently.

“What’s her problem?”

Evie didn’t bother glancing toward the girl beside her as she shuffled her things onto the table. There was a dull rumble of voices in the room that made her comfortable enough to reply, quietly, “just prejudice.”

“I didn’t expect racism to be a big problem in Fairytale Land.”

“No, not…” Evie sighed diligently and rolled her eyes. “Not like that.” She would have elaborated, but the bell had rung and a clamoring hush was falling over the classroom.

“Fine. Bonding moment over.” The girl pulled her chair closer to Evie and propped her head onto her elbow. “Now, the wand.”

Evie ignored her. She pointedly flipped her notebook open and twirled her pencil in her fingers.

“One of your goody-two-shoes classmates knows where it is. All you have to do is actually talk to one of them. Which might be harder than it sounds. You seem wildly unpopular here. Of all the kids that could summon me…”

“Stop calling me a kid,” Evie admonished quietly, in a surge of annoyance. “You look the exact same age as me.”

“Do I now?” The girl caressed her chin with her finger and smirked. “Wouldn’t know. I take the form that my summoner finds most attractive.”

Evie shot the other a quick, harrowing glance. (The tough stance she adopted was softened by the glow on her cheeks, the likes of which accompanied most of the demon’s ill-fated quips.) Her icy look was met with a laugh and a small wave, and Evie was guessing that was another of the girl’s endlessly unamusing jokes.

She ‘hmphed’ under her breath and returned the better part of her attention to the teacher at the front of the room.

“We just have to single out the one that knows the most,” the demon continued, as though nothing had happened. “One of these know-it-alls spends a creepy amount of time with the Headmistress, I bet.”

Evie blinked and, without intending to play into the demon’s words, thought of the Headmistress’ daughter. Jane. The girl who had been terrified of her since the moment the VKs had stepped foot in Auradon. Her breathing stilled as she imagined herself interrogating the short-haired girl. If she did that, her image as a villain would be made permanent in Jane’s mind. And if that happened, the girl’s fear would become rational.

Well… not rational, but not _as_ irrational. The thought made Evie worry the inside of her cheek.

The demon slapped her arm and Evie recoiled, wildly turning to the other. The other girl was raising both eyebrows expectantly. “Feel like contributing?”

Evie exhaled harshly and rolled her eyes, jerking her head toward the front of the room emphatically.

The other girl only raised her eyebrows higher.

She wasn’t sure why she’d expected the girl to respect her need to be discreet. She couldn’t decide whether the other was truly oblivious or merely taking pleasure in each of Evie’s deepening frowns.

With a huff of annoyance, she abruptly raised her hand. Before she could be called on she said, “May I go to the restroom?”

The heads of everyone in class turned to her, vague expressions of interest etched onto their features. Questions were evident on the brows of many. Evie had to guess that most of them had yet to hear her speak; she figured that this was their lucky day.

“Yes, Evie. Just remember the pass.”

As soon as the door of the classroom was closed behind them, Evie was rounding on the purple-haired girl.

“You’ve got to stop doing that.”

“Doing what, Blue?” The demon was smiling as she leaned against one of the lockers that bookended the room they’d just exited. She was clearly too pleased with herself.

“Talking to me around other people. Actual people, who can actually hear me. If you want to talk about your evil plan, fine, but only when we’re alone.” Evie’s eyes darted toward the classroom and its thin door. “I’m serious!”

The demon’s smile had transformed into a shit-eating grin. She brought a hand to her lips, as if stifling a yawn. Evie felt a now-familiar flare of annoyance heating her entire body.

“Oh, right. I forgot – you have a reputation to keep here. I can tell by the way everyone’s positively _fighting_ to be your friend.”

Evie glared at the girl. Her eyes canvassed the delicate features of her face. The very sight of her, so casual, so unbothered, crawled under Evie’s skin. She wanted to grab the girl and shake her, tell her that she had actual things on the line here. A life, a _new_ life, in Auradon, no less; and that might not have meant anything to a soul-sucking demon, but it was all that Evie had and she didn’t intend to lose it in some deal gone wrong.

Instead of saying all of those things, Evie let the dull anger fill her body.

“Y’know, there’s another thing your warning should have mentioned. You’re a bitch.”

“And you’re a brat,” the girl countered immediately, with all the force of Evie’s words rebounded. Something stirred in her eyes as she took a quick step toward Evie, one that Evie compensated for by reeling backwards. “But a deal is a deal, so act like your life depends on finding that goddamn wand, because it does, kid.”

Evie’s lips tightened. The demon’s voice had dropped in the same way it had the night before as she threatened Jay and Carlos. It was a lilting voice, one with a hard undertone that made Evie believe every implicit threat in every word the girl spoke. Though she was loathe to admit it, the very sound of it made every hair on her body stand on end.

There was a moment, breathless, in which Evie almost felt like she could fight the power play. And then it was gone.

“Fine,” she relented, under her breath, as she averted her eyes. Her earlier annoyance was now laced with embarrassment. There was nothing she could say to get under the other girl’s skin in that same way. All it took was a well-worded threat from the demon and Evie’s verbal defense was in shambles – not to mention her own bodily safety. She had little choice but to do what the other wanted. But she’d be damned if she did so with a smile.

After a beat, and an abrupt realization, Evie fished into her pocket. “Let’s find it, then.”

“What are you doing?”

Evie ignored the girl’s question. Her fingers dug around in the leather of her skirt until catching on the familiar, smooth surface of her magic mirror. She pulled it out slowly and glanced around the hallways to make sure that no stray student was walking in their direction.

“What is that?” The demon’s voice had shifted again, this time into something foreign. She sounded _worried_. Evie had to guess that she wasn’t used to being left out of the loop. Evie tried to take pleasure in the girl’s greedy look, and the fact that she was uninformed, but she was too tired to linger on such a small victory.

So, instead of responding, Evie raised the mirror and said, “Mirror, mirror, in my hand, where does Fairy Godmother’s wand stand?”

Evie half-expected the mirror to deny her request. Considering the power of the magical object they were after, she doubted it would be as simple as waltzing in wherever it was located – but lo and behold, her reflected face dissolved into the visage of an ornate, blue wand, floating in place above a wooden cabinet. Her eyes flitted about the image for a phrase or item to identify its location. But the place was entirely non-descript.

“Magic mirror, not so close,” she commanded. The demon advanced to her side and leaned over Evie’s shoulder; she did her best to ignore the annoying proximity.

“You’ve had this the whole time?” The phrasing sounded accusatory, but the demon’s tone was too interested to inflect the proper annoyance.

“Yes,” Evie said. And so she had, though she hadn’t thought of using the mirror until that very moment. She narrowed her eyes at the image of the earth reflected back to her. “Closer,” she repeated, and then, again, “closer.”

The girl’s fingers snapped around Evie’s wrist before she was given time to process the location now floating before them within the glass of the mirror.

“There,” the girl nearly growled. “’The museum of cultural history.’”

“So I see.” Evie frowned and carefully pushed the mirror back into her pocket. With her other hand, she jerked out of the demon’s grip.

“That’s only a couple of miles from here. We could make it in the hour.”

Evie blinked at the girl, unsure of whether she was being serious. Her icy gaze made it abundantly clear that she, unfortunately, was.

“No,” she said, finally, “No, we can’t.” Evie held out the comically large hall pass that she’d strapped to her wrist. “I’ve already been out for five minutes, and most of the people here are just begging for a reason to kick us back to the Isle. I’m not gonna start skipping. Besides, I just helped you, and we haven’t even talked about your end of the deal yet.”

“Getting the wand is priority number one,” the girl said, slowly, as she took another step towards Evie. “Get the wand, and we could send all of those annoying classmates of yours to the Isle instead… or worse.”

Evie watched the girl approach and shook her head. She forced herself to stay still. “That’s not what I want.” In a smaller voice, she said, “I need to get back inside.”

“I _know_ what you want.”

The demon’s pace toward her didn’t slow, and Evie began walking backward, her eyes unwavering, her grip on the hall pass tightening.

“Knowing these things is part of my job, Blue. _Part_ of it. You see, I have a lot riding on this exchange of ours. _I’m_ doing the heavy lifting. I’m the one that’s going to make your hopes and dreams come true. I’m the one who is keeping you alive at this very moment, which is something that you’re making very, very difficult for me. But that’s compromise. Something that you’re clearly not familiar with. Do you need me to teach you what compromise means?”

Evie continued to walk backward, her eyes darting between the ever-advancing figure and the space behind herself. Her fear was mingling with her anger, forming an unsafe combination of hurt pride and impulse. She took another step backward before rooting herself firmly.

“You really don’t like being called a bitch, do you?”

Her back was digging into the lockers within the second she’d finished speaking. She gasped as the girl’s fingers curled around the wooden hall pass attached to her arm and pushed the blunt edge of it hard against the bottom of her chin, forcing her up against the ventilated creases of the locker.

“Oh, Blue, you really, really test my patience.” Her voice was disturbingly calm as she pressed the pass harder against Evie’s neck. Only the eerie, pulsing green of her eyes betrayed the demon’s fury. “This isn’t personal. If it was, you’d already be dead.”

Evie absurdly realized that she was dealing with an unstable force. It was like playing with fire.

Apparently, she excelled at burning herself.

“You… you can’t kill me,” she managed.

“Interesting comeback. Not one I’d suggest in this position.” The demon leaned in, and Evie could feel her breath tickling the underside of her chin. “Care to explain?”

“The deal.” Evie’s feet slid against the lockers as she shifted to her tip-toes and forced her gaze downward and onto the other girl. She was shooting wildly into the dark; she had no idea the universe-binding impact of demon deals, but god, she hoped there was life insurance embedded in there somehow. “Our deal… hasn’t been fulfilled.”

“Death nullifies these things.”

“But you owe me a deep, dark desire!” Evie swallowed, her throat catching. “And not being killed is a pretty deep desire of mine right now.”

“Oh, shit.” Evie watched as the girl shook her head and drew back. The pressure on her front slackened. She almost sighed from the relief, but was too horrified by the girl’s reaction to be heartened. The demon laughed, but the sound was dry and unamused.

“You really think hurting you goes against our deal? Honey. You’ve been hurting yourself your whole life. No way does it go against your desires.”

Evie’s stomach twisted. She wanted to have no idea what the girl was talking about, wanted to shake her head and form an ‘o’ with her mouth that would convey the innocent kind of unknowing that she desired. But instead of doing those things, Evie only stared at the girl and thought of her mother, of the things that her mother had taught her to do, of the person that she had taught her to be.

It made Evie sick to her stomach to wonder what else this girl knew.

“Stop it,” she managed, quietly, as she braced her hands against the girl’s shoulders in a weak attempt to push her away. “That’s… not true, and it’s none of your fucking business, anyway.”

“Your business is my business, sweetheart.”

Evie watched the girl for another split second before she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The demon stepped away from her with wide eyes.

“What the FUCK –“

Before she could finish her exclamation, doors were slamming open in a cacophony of bustling sound and movement. Teachers stepped outside, followed and quickly overwhelmed by a mass of students with looks of interest on their face, eager for anything other than what they were learning.

 _Even in Auradon, other people’s pain and suffering is always better than your own,_ Evie thought to herself, wildly. She felt the weight of their stares and confusion as clearly as she could feel the ghostly sensation of the hall pass pressing against her neck.

The demon glanced around herself frantically before she finally settled her gaze back on Evie. Her fingers clenched. 

But she made no move to advance. Evie figured they were both thinking the same thing, perhaps for the first time; attacking her again, with this crowd, would encourage too many hard-to-answer questions.

Evie brushed her hair down and stroked her neck softly, eyebrows flying upward.

“I… I thought I saw a spider,” she said, quietly.

-

Evie spent the rest of the day with company. She figured she was safe so long as she was surrounded by watchful eyes. For once, she was extremely thankful for the amount of stares she received as she strutted through the halls. She even smiled as she sashayed through her classmates’ visions, all whilst ignoring the demon and her annoyed admonitions.

“You can’t pretend I’m not here forever,” she reminded her at lunch, as Evie ate in the grass of the courtyard with Jay and Carlos.

“I wasn’t going to actually hurt you, Blue,” she said, with a distasteful look around as Evie followed a group of girls into the bathroom between class. (Evie had to refrain from snorting at that, but she stopped short, reminding herself that she didn’t want to seem crazy and also, this was not the sort of humor she wanted to lower herself to because, on second thought, maybe she _was_ going crazy.)

“Now you’re just being melodramatic,” she growled in eighth period, when Evie had remedial goodness and propped both legs on the empty chair beside her just to spite the demon. (The girl spent the entire period standing in the front of the room, staring Fairy Godmother down as though doing so would conjure the wand and solve all of their problems.)

“We need to talk,” she said, after the bell had rung and Evie was strolling beside Jay and Carlos with a small smile.

Evie was trying to pay attention to her friends, but the demon was making it nearly impossible. She’d wedged herself into Evie’s eyesight, walking backwards between Jay and Carlos with crossed arms and an expectantly raised eyebrow. She forced herself to remain clear-headed, smiling, and focused on something less homicidal than the purple-haired girl blocking her view.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jay asked. He turned on his heel and walked backwards through the hall. He had no way of knowing that he was mere inches away from the fourth, ghostly presence.

“What?” For a split second, Evie was sure that he had heard the demon speak, somehow, and her heart stilled in her chest.

“You usually sprint away at the end of class to talk to –" Jay swooned and brought a hand to his forehead “- _Prince Benjamin_.”

“Oh shit.” Evie stopped in her tracks to the soundtrack of Carlos’ unabated laughter. “Ben. I totally forgot.”

“Forgot?” There was still a remnant of a smile on Carlos’ face. “You sure you’re okay, Eves?”

“I’ve just been so caught up with… with everything, I can’t believe I forgot… I’ll catch you guys back at the dorm!” And with that, Evie split the path between her two friends and began fast-walking through the halls. Although she was tempted to sprint, as Jay had suggested, she figured it would further ruin her image. (Her stunt in fourth period had already become the talk of Auradon; she didn't want to add any fuel to _that_ fire.) 

She easily parted the seas with one raised, gloved hand, following the familiar path to Ben's locker with trepidation.

“Calm the fuck down, Blue,” she vaguely heard from behind her. Evie ignored the voice and pressed on.

By the time she reached Ben’s locker, his usual class was already cleared out and he was nowhere in sight. She threw several glances down both halls, waiting for the brunette to swim before her eyes miraculously. Instead, the purple-haired demon stepped into her sights and raised both of her hands questioningly.

“Shit,” she repeated, followed by a groan under her breath. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the lockers. She could already feel a headache coming on – it was long overdue, given her lack of sleep, near-death experience, and all-around shit-fest of a day.

“Oh, look who it is,” the demon drawled, and Evie opened her eyes to see a very pissed-off Audrey standing before her with hands on her hips.

“Are you looking for someone?”

“Me?” Evie asked, stupidly, before bringing her hands to her temples and massaging the skin there. “Oh, no, I’m… just… walking to my dorm.”

“Mhm. Which totally explains why you’re leaning against my boyfriend’s locker.”

“Funny coincidence?” Evie tried, in a mumble. She was too tired to intellectually spar with the girl before her, a fact that seemed to further frustrate Audrey. Her eyes narrowed.

“Listen. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, I really did. When Benny-Boo – that’s what I call Ben, you know, my _boyfriend_ –“ at this point, Evie noticed the demon mimic throwing up “- mentioned that he was bringing all of you ‘villain kids’ over, I really tried to support it. I did. Even though you had given us every reason not to trust you, we opened our hearts to you. And now I hear you’re taking advantage of that?”

“Look, Audrey, I don’t–“

“Don’t ‘Audrey’ me. We’re not friends.”

Evie opened her mouth, hesitated, and then furrowed her eyebrows. “Only your friends can call you by… your name?”

The demon snorted.

“No,” Audrey snapped, “only my friends can interrupt me when I’m talking. You can deny it all you want, but Ben tells me everything. I mean everything. He might be too nice to see you for who you are, but I know that you’re trying to… to seduce him. I don’t know how it works on the Isle, but in Auradon, we don’t go after other girl’s boyfriends.”

Evie frowned. Why had she thought Ben might have discretion regarding their brief conversations? Of course he would tell Audrey. After all, Ben was the prince of Auradon, a truly stand-up guy, and _loyal_ , to Auradon and, it seemed, his girlfriend. Evie had hoped he would see their meetings as a threat for Audrey’s clearly fragile ego. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. Because Ben was all smiles and good nature and he’d never keep a secret from her.

Evie cursed him in all of his perfection.

She needed to do some serious damage control. One look into Audrey’s eyes made it obvious that the other girl was fuming, and Evie was way too tired to eloquently handle that situation. The safest route was to table the conversation for later, at a time when Evie had more than two hours of sleep going for her.

“Ben is just a friend,” she started, slowly. “He’s been so nice to us since we got here, and… and, us Isle kids, we’re… not really used to that. So I guess I was reading into it, just a little.” She emphasized her point with a small pout of her lips, though she was cringing on the inside. “I... meant nothing by it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

Evie had just enough time to notice the dumbfounded expression on Audrey’s face before she brushed past her quickly.

At least now, if their conversation got back to Ben, the other boy might pause long enough to give Evie the real time of day.

The demon whistled as she fell into step with Evie.

“What was that about?”

“It’s about the people here thinking they’re better than us just because we’ve had a rougher past than them,” Evie snapped sourly, breaking her streak of silence, hardly bothering to lower her voice as she walked through the halls. As it were, the dull afterschool chatter masked her words. “Seeing the worst in us just ‘cause they won’t challenge themselves to see more than that.”

(Even if Evie had been trying to seduce Ben. That was beside the point.)

“And… remind me again why you don’t want to send everyone here to the Isle.”

“Because I’m not you, and because no one deserves that. Not me, and not them, either. Just because they suck doesn’t mean they should live through that.” Evie’s brow furrowed further. “And by the way, trying to kill me? Really not cool.”

“What did I say earlier? I wasn’t going to kill you. Don’t be dramatic.”

Evie’s lips tightened. She stopped in place. They had reached the door to her dorm and she could hear Jay and Carlos laughing inside.

“How am I supposed to trust that you won’t attack me again the minute I’m alone?”

The demon shrugged. “You don’t, really.”

Evie clenched her jaw. The girl was acting like Evie’s personal safety was an irreverent joke. As much as she wanted to tell her off, she’d had personal experience with questioning her, and thought better of it.

If they were going to work together (an emphasis on if – any alternative was looking more and more promising by the minute), they were going to need to work past the chip on the demon’s shoulder.

“No,” Evie shot back, pointing an accusing finger at the other. “That doesn’t work for me. If you want that wand, you need me. I’m _compromising_ my physical safety for this, so I’m going to need your word.”

“My word?”

“Yeah. Your word that you won’t hurt me, or, you know, anyone else, for that matter.”

“You’re going to trust me on my word, and nothing else.”

“I sure as hell won’t make another deal with you, if that’s what you mean.”

Not for the last time, Evie and the demon stared at one another wordlessly for an agonizingly long time. She could hear the sound of students shuffling just around the bend, the idle chatter of friends after class, and even the muffled, electronic sounds of Carlos’ video game. But those sounds bled into the background as she focused on the girl’s eyes, daring her to refuse.

Truthfully, Evie didn’t have a Plan B if she did.

“Fine.” The girl spoke, abruptly. Evie blinked out of her stupor. “I won’t hurt you. You have my word. Thanks for taking the fun out of everything.” There was hesitation, and then, the demon tilted her head to the side. “You’re weird, Blue.”

“Is that your way of calling me gullible?” Evie crossed her arms and sized the girl up, as though it were a question which of them had the upper hand. “Not a good way to make me trust you.”

“It’s my way of calling you weird.”

Evie opened her mouth to respond, but bit down on her own tongue to stop herself. She had to work with the girl before her; that didn’t mean they needed to speak to each other, particularly about things not concerning the wand or Evie’s future prince.

Considering their interactions thus far, Evie thought it was smart to keep her own words in check. Not to mention less of a headache, in the end.

“Whatever you say,” she decided. “Word taken.”

The demon heaved a sigh. “Does that mean we can get the wand now?”

“No,” Evie dismissed, before continuing, warily, “It’s way too early. There’ll probably be people in there. Not to mention we don’t have a plan, like, at all.”

The girl ‘hmphed.’ It was satisfying to think that she was annoyed at the situation, for once, and not Evie.

“We wait, then. Until it gets dark.” The demon leaned against the frame of the door. Her gaze flicked back to Evie. She smiled wryly. “That’s all the planning we need. I can handle the finer points.”

Evie didn’t know the intention behind those words. For better or worse, she assumed she’d know within the night.

 _Almost certainly_ , she thought, _for worse_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I finish writing a chapter from this story, I have to read at least 10 fluff-based Malvie stories. True story.
> 
> Buuut - I love you guys, again and always! Thanks for the kudos and comments.


	4. Quick storm coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can’t make a prince fall in love with you, spell him. If you can’t spell him, get someone else to do it for you. If you can’t get someone else to do it for you, get some other demon to do it for you, preferably one with jarringly green eyes, long, purple hair, the sickly sweet smell of strawberries clinging to her, and a tendency to speak her mind even, and especially when, you’d rather she wouldn’t.
> 
> Or: how Evie’s unintentional fuck-up ends up being exactly what she needed and, perhaps more dangerously, everything she wanted.

The Museum of Cultural History was a sore thumb in the vibrant world of Auradon. Even at night, its faded brick walls seemed to be plucked from another world entirely. Evie could hardly make out the end of the building and the beginning of the nighttime air. It was, architecturally speaking, a let-down, particularly compared to the impressive array of architectural feats that Evie had seen since arriving.

But there was one up-side to it all: with her dark leather ensemble, the midnight air surrounding her and the drab exterior of the building, Evie could almost imagine that she was back on the Isle again. And if she was back on the Isle, she could judge herself less for what she was about to do.

Not that she knew what she was about to do, _exactly_. But with the moral upstanding of her demonic company, Evie guessed that their plan was somewhere south of legal. Very, very south.

“Okay.” Evie stopped at the base of the stairs. She turned to the signpost place prominently before the building, once again reading the words emblazoned there: “Museum of Cultural History.” There was no denying they were in the right place. “It’s about time you told me just what your plan is.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Evie’s eyes hardened on the other girl as she ascended the stairs.

“Oh, no.” Evie’s voice was a whisper. “No – that’s not how this works. We’re partners in this.” Her feet remained planted at the bottom of the staircase.

“Relax, Blue.” The demon’s voice was jarringly loud; Evie had been staving off the impulse to shush her the entire two miles they’d walked. “It’s gonna be fun for you. Now get up here, _partner_.”

“You really don’t know me well enough to decide what I enjoy.”

“Well, I can see your every –”

“All of my deepest and darkest desires,” Evie interrupted, impatiently, the words whistling through her teeth quietly. “How many times are you going to bring that up?”

The girl sighed and waved at Evie. “As many times as you forget it. Now get up here already. We’re wasting nightlight.”

Evie ignored the beckoning. She crossed her arms and planted her feet resolutely, raising a challenging eyebrow. So, the girl was stubborn – well, she would learn soon enough that Evie was stubborn, too.

The demon stared back with a dull glare. For a moment, Evie thought she saw her green eyes begin to pulse. But the silent contest didn’t last long.

“ _Ugh_.” The demon’s shoulders slumped as she retraced her steps back to the stairs.

She had broken much faster than Evie had expected, though she assumed the girl’s reasons were time-related. It would be too much to imagine that she actually cared about what Evie thought or wanted, in this or any situation.

Evie followed her every move reproachfully. Although she’d only agreed to help the girl on promise of no bodily harm, she hadn’t forgotten who she was dealing with; far from it. Her every nerve was on edge. If she had allowed herself to be controlled by impulse, she would have flinched away from the girl’s advancement upon her.

But Evie had summoned her for a reason; she had a lot riding on the success of their illegal venture – if not the procurement of a Prince, then the safety of herself and her friends. She had a feeling that both were at stake, were they to fail.

Still, she wasn’t sure why a description of her plan required her to get so freaking close.

Her chin upturned as the girl stopped mere feet from her. For a moment, Evie could see exasperation in the other’s bright eyes; then, it faded away into something else. Something she couldn’t place.

“Give me your hand,” the girl commanded.

Evie frowned impulsively. _Touch – bad._ Touch was to be avoided. Their last physical contact had been life-threatening and Evie could still feel the hall pass digging into her skin. (She would have checked for a bruise in the hours since the incident, but she’d been too aware of the demon’s ever-present gaze to do so.)

“Excuse me, why?” She inquired, instinctually.

“For the love of…” The demon forcefully wrapped her fingers around Evie’s wrist and yanked her closer.

Evie was overwhelmed by fear and discomfort at the sudden contact. They were common emotions associated with the other girl, especially when she was this close and touching her hand for reasons she didn’t understand. A panicked train of thought took hold in her mind; she was going to threaten her again. Evie could see it as clearly as she could see the choppy ends of the demon’s bob.

Without thinking, Evie jerked away, only to have the girl easily hold her in place with her free hand, which she had wrapped around Evie’s elbow.

“Hey! What the hell?” Evie attempted to stagger away. “You promised –”

“I didn’t promise anything. I gave you _my word_. There’s a difference.” The demon’s concentration was fixed on Evie’s hand, which she flattened on top of her own. “Now, for the last time: _relax_.”

Evie’s minor panic stalled as she watched the girl close her eyes. It was the first time she’d seen the other with her eyes shut. It was an off-putting sight. Under other circumstances, she might have even described it as peaceful.

She became so distracted by the expression that she didn’t notice the green flame dancing in her palm.

Evie cowered backward. If not for the steady hand holding her in place, she would have staggered onto her ass.

“Easy,” the demon instructed, in a tried voice.

“ _Holy shiiiit_!”

As though she could feel Evie’s abrupt impulse to pull away, the demon’s grip tightened hard enough to bruise. But Evie was too fascinated to care. Fear coursed through her as she watched the flame lick at the open palm of her hand, as she imagined it crawling up her arm and engulfing her completely. She felt the practical impulse to pull away and shake her hand wildly until the flame extinguished itself and the immediate danger was quelled.

Even stronger, though, she felt wonder. _She was doing this._

Kind of.

Her eyes transfixed on the flame as she attempted to form words.

“I thought… I thought you were… _blocked_ , or… or…”

“I am. But this is some of the simplest magic there is. I can still manage it – with your help.”

Evie exhaled. She’d been holding her breath without realizing. She licked her lips slowly and swallowed. Her eyes flitted upward to find that the girl was staring at her.

“I can channel you,” she translated, the words a statement as opposed to the question they were intended to be.

“Yeah. With the simple stuff, at least, but I doubt we’re gonna need more than this to get in there.” She nodded toward the Museum and, after a beat, smirked. “Besides… you couldn’t handle much more than this. You humans are oh so fragile.”

Besides a withering look and a frown, Evie didn’t address the demon’s latter statement. After all, the very act of holding the flame was making her light-headed. Still, she hoped desperately that the girl wasn’t aware of that.

(But, she probably was, judging by the smug look that had taken residence on her face.)

Evie cleared her throat and stepped away abruptly. This time, the other girl made no move to stop her. The flame dissolved into the air with ease, leaving only a humming feeling in Evie’s fingers to remind her of its reality.

“You needed a body,” Evie observed, as stiffly as she could manage. “I get it now.”

“Ding-ding!” The girl turned and took the stairs two at a time. “So, come on, body.”

Evie followed her this time, grimacing all-the-while. She imagined the neon flame dancing out of control and consuming the Museum. Her eyes darted to the demon and she hoped that, somehow, the girl was self-aware enough to realize that burning the place down was _not_ an option.

She rocked onto her tip-toes to peer inside once she’d reached the door. The glass panes opened out upon the opening rotunda, which was still brightly lit at the late hour. Her eyes darted over the scene, but thankfully, it appeared that the hall was vacant.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Now, seriously. Remember what I told you. We keep this quiet.”

“Of course,” the demon agreed, though the disinterested look on her face made Evie fear the worst.

Evie bit her tongue. She didn’t feel like being told to _“Relax, Blue.”_

“Hand,” the girl commanded. This time, Evie offered it without squabble.

The demon continued to stare inside as she wrapped her fingers around Evie’s. Evie was thankful that the girl’s undivided attention was being directed elsewhere. The intensity of her expression was chilling, and if the girl had turned to look at Evie, she might have noticed that her own gaze was directed downward toward the hand splayed atop her own. The touch was jarring, but not because it was ice-cold – Evie was surprised to note that the girl’s skin was temperate against her own. It was easier to notice without a literal fire in the palm of her hand.

She filed that observation away somewhere between ‘unimportant’ and ‘not the right time.’

Her breathing stilled as she waited for the building before her to crack open, or for flames to sprout at the ground below them, or something equally earth-shattering and _loud_ to announce their presence to all Auradon. But seconds passed, and instead of standing on a pile of rubble, Evie was still staring at an in-tact, if architecturally unappealing, Museum of Cultural History.

She opened her mouth to break the moment but was interrupted by a shock travelling violently down her spine.

Evie gasped. She felt her knees give out, but somehow, she remained level with the glass panes before her. She closed her eyes as the vibration travelled to her feet and curled her toes; her mind wondered to the night before, when she’d been levitating, mere moments before she’d first spoken to the demon; and it had been over _so_ abruptly then; was it not so long ago? Summoning a demon was cataclysmic in nature, sure, but even that was different from this roaring sensation that enveloped her entire body in a bind that was electric. This was worse, definitely worse, Evie was sure.

But she blinked and the feeling was gone, replaced by a numbness that hummed throughout her body, so loudly that she could almost hear it.

“Oh, fuck.” Evie slipped from the girl’s grasp and braced her palms against her knees and rambled. “Oh god, that. What… what the hell did you _do_ to me? I said… I said to keep it quiet, not blow the place up.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” The demon stepped in front of Evie and pushed the girl’s shoulders up and forward before stepping out of the way. “I just opened the door, Blue. It’s not my fault you’re such a little bitch.”

Evie opened her mouth to argue but was faced with the demon’s truth: the double doors had been opened, without so much as a scratch on the set of them. She faltered.

The demon laughed, high and sudden. Evie grimaced at the sound.

“Shut up.” She straightened out. “Just… shut up, so we can get this whole thing over with.”

The chiming sound of her amusement tapered, though it rocked her voice as she managed, “sure. If that’s what you want.”

It wasn’t, insofar as Evie had no desire to be caught stealing the single most important object in Auradon’s history. But Evie hated the sight of the girl’s smirk and didn’t know if she could handle the demon’s presence for another day, even, so she ignored her own desires and balled her hands into fists as she purposefully crossed the threshold of the Museum.

Evie’s pride was too wounded for her to linger on fears of being caught. She strode through the room boldly, fast enough for the other girl to scoff from behind her.

“So that’s what it takes to motivate you, huh? If only I’d known, I could’ve held your hand a lot sooner, Blue.”

The words made Evie’s heart beat angrily against her chest. She fiercely ignored the demon, pressing on and into a side hallway. She wasn’t thinking about where she was going, or even bothering to check for signs of cameras or a guard. Evie was too preoccupied with keeping her cool. She had given the demon the upper hand far too many times for her own liking, and she didn’t intend on handing it over yet again in her flusterment.

“Hey, slow down. You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“And you do?” Evie whispered. She didn’t stop, though she did slow, if only to dull the sound of her footsteps. “Enlighten me, then.”

“Sure. Just give me your hand and we’ll have a Round Two.”

“Right,” Evie replied, crossly. “I forgot – your warranty is expired. So much for demons being all-knowing.”

A hand fell on Evie’s shoulder and stopped her in her place. It was light in its descent, but firm in its grip.

“Careful,” the girl warned. The word dripped with intent.

Evie pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth as responses flooded her mind. The girl deserved the worst that her creativity could supply. But Evie didn’t trust her to keep her word – and, judging by the look in those green, green eyes, the girl had no qualms with advertising her desire to betray the word she’d given.

She blinked into those eyes and raised her chin. “Yeah. I get it. You can dish it but you can’t take it.”

Evie broke the gaze and the grip on her shoulder. She waited for a hand to grip her arm, or for her body to be shoved forward, or for the other to retaliate in any way. But her words were met with nothing but a pause, followed by the sound of footfalls resuming, if, perhaps, quieter this time.

Evie licked her lips and pressed onward.

Her footsteps muted as she turned the corner. Her eyes roamed their surroundings in search of the wand. Instead, she was greeted with an assortment of other trinkets; a pair of spectacles, an ominous-looking staff, a cauldron filled with green liquid. Each item floated in its own receptacle and was bathed in a light that looked _alive_.

As if reading her mind, the demon mumbled, “electric bill here must be through the roof.”

Evie canvassed the first larger display room they reached, and then the next, and then the next. There appeared to be an endless trove of historical objects. Many of them appeared magical, even, not that it did her any good; none was the wand. And Evie didn’t guess that the demon was interested in settling for an artifact of lesser power.

She didn’t seem interested in settling over anything, for that matter.

The click of Evie’s heels and the shallow echo of the demon’s footfalls were the soundtrack to their exhaustive mission. The trepidation that Evie initially felt soon faded into boredom, and then a new sort of fear. What if the mirror had been wrong? (The mirror was never wrong.) But what if it was? Evie could only imagine the hell she would have to pay for leading the demon astray. And even if she wasn’t flambéed, or tortured, they’d be back to square one. And Evie didn’t think she could spend her life in the shadow of an invisible girl that almost certainly wanted her dead for the hell of it. Now that – that would be the real torture.

“Huh.”

Evie stopped herself short and glanced to the demon. She followed the girl’s gaze to a room near the end of the hall. Within, she could just see the base of a statue and the isolated fluttering of a cloak. It was… unsettling, for a reason that Evie couldn’t yet place.

Evie walked forward with halting steps. Her heart began to thud against her chest rhythmically. The statue’s likeness came into better view with every movement.

“Mother,” she whispered, just as she stepped deep enough inside of the cavernous room to reveal the Evil Queen’s head. She stopped short and stared, lips apart, feeling as though she should greet the other. She was appallingly lifelike. Appallingly, _terrifyingly_ lifelike.

“She’s stiffer than I thought she’d be,” the demon commented. But Evie wasn’t listening.

She knew that she shouldn’t have been surprised by the statue. She _was_ the Evil Queen. That was what they called her here, because she lived in equal infamy as Snow White herself. If not more. And with that infamy came the need to tell her story. Her history.

Evie’s history, to an extent.

She had advanced closer without realizing. Her eyes drifted between the waxy smile on her lips to the apple placed precariously in her elevated hand. If she reached forward, Evie was sure she could have removed the apple and taken a bite and –

“ _Blue_.”

A hand settled on the high part of her back and Evie blinked. She turned to face the girl behind her. For once, the demon said nothing.

Evie hesitated, then pushed away from the girl’s unwanted touch. “I’m fine,” she mumbled, although the other hadn’t asked and certainly didn’t care, anyway.

She forced her eyes to skip over the entrancing figure of her mother. It allowed her to notice the myriad of other statues that littered the room. An uneasiness consumed her as she saw the visages of Jafar and Cruella De Vil. Although they didn’t evoke the same incomprehensible mess of emotions that her mother did, their presence brought a sour taste to Evie’s mouth all the same. She was thankful, not for the last time, that Jay and Carlos were safely, blissfully back at Auradon Prep. Especially Carlos, whose bright eyes were so wont to turn cold at the sight of his mother. And for good reason, in Evie’s opinion.

And then there was a figure that dominated the central pedestal of the room. The woman’s body was unrealistically large, inhabiting twice the space that Evie’s mother had, with arms that extended upward and a long staff that nearly touched the ground in its expansiveness. Her robes were black and deep purple and swept the floor. The frayed edges of her cloak seemed to catch in a wind that wasn’t even there.

As Evie watched, and her gaze ascended, she was sure that she saw the woman’s eyes flash a distinctive shade of green.

“Alright.” A grip fixed on Evie’s arm. “Now I’m _really_ bored. Family reunion over.”

Evie stumbled as the demon pulled her away from her transfixion. But she resisted, perhaps futilely. “No, wait.”

“This is not what we came here for.”

“Who is that?” She wasn’t sure why she asked so presumptively. But the other girl’s behavior was notably impatient. More impatient than usual, even.

The only answer to Evie’s question was the resolute slapping of heels against marbled floor as she was pulled further and further from the statue in question. Evie huffed disapprovingly.

“You know, don’t you? Just tell me.”

“I said.” The demon’s fingers curled tighter and tighter around the skin of Evie’s arm. “This is _not_ what we came here for.”

The edge to her voice, so expertly crafted every time, was back. Evie managed one glance back before she was pulled into a new hallway and her view of the mysterious woman was obscured. It was then that she realized the statue would have a marker, some identifier, of course. She’d been too enveloped by the haze of seeing her mother to think clearly.

She fell away from the demon’s leading touch.

“I don’t know how you expect me to trust you when you won’t tell me anything,” she insisted bitterly.

“We’re here to get the wand. That’s it. Anything else is a distraction. Including your existential self-doubt at the sight of mommy dearest, by the way.”

Evie huffed in annoyance and hurt. The demon didn’t notice or care.

“Why don’t you do something useful and pull out that mirror of yours?”

“Every room looks the same in here. It wouldn’t even help us.”

“I’ll make that decision. I’m the brains, you’re the body, remember?” The girl’s arm extended back to Evie and her fingers curled expectantly. “Fork it over.”

“It wouldn’t work for you,” Evie replied, instinctively, automatically. As soon as the words escaped she doubted them. The mirror had worked for only herself, but this would be the first time that a demon had tried. Perhaps the magic that had been all her own could become this other girl’s. The thought made Evie madly jealous. She didn’t want to share this part of herself, not with anyone, and certainly not with her demonic companion.

The thought was clearly shared. “You want to bet?” Came the foreboding reply that set Evie’s nerves on end.

She reluctantly curled her fingers into the leather of her skirt-pocket before her eyes settled down the hall.

“There.”

The demon moved like a bolt of lightning. Her stare redirected to the direction of Evie’s fixed gaze.

The wand was given a room unto itself. It, too, was bathed in a celestial light, and as Evie watched, she noticed the gentle ebb and flow of it as it suspended between the two supporting columns. It was surrounded by a circular guardrail that was wooden but embellished with flecks of gold. The bright protections reflected the light that encased the wand, and Evie couldn’t help the thought that this room cost more than every belonging on the Isle of the Lost compiled.

“Finally,” the demon muttered. She abandoned Evie’s side. Evie’s fingers were still positioned around her mirror. For the first time that night, she was thankful for small miracles. She followed the other quickly.

“What’s your big plan, then?”

“Well,” the demon replied, as she braced herself against the rails. “I was planning on grabbing it.”

Evie blinked incredulously. She knew that the girl wasn’t kidding, but god, she _wished_ she was.

“With your _hands_?”

“Hm… that’s how one grabs things, yes. No need to complicate it.”

“You can’t. There’s got to be loads of protections on that thing. There’s got to be a way that you can channel me again, maybe we can –”

But Evie’s marvelous idea (which involved very little chaos but an abundance of complications) went unheard, because as quickly as she’d begun to explain it, the demon had surged for the wand and successfully yanked it away from its protective glow and into the palm of her hand.

Evie braced herself.

The silence of the Museum became blaringly loud as Evie waited for the inevitable ringing of alarms. But none came. She waited several seconds before she opened her eyes and began to cautiously untense. Her eyes fixed on the demon, who was smirking at her with the usual level of self-gratification.

And that warranted a disdainful, judgmental look, but Evie didn’t supply it. Because the demon was now holding the most powerful wand in Auradon and grinning at her like a maniac and she knew that now was not the time to be stupid.

But oh, she wanted to be.

“I… didn’t think it would be that easy,” she allowed.

“You think too much, Blue.” The girl had taken to stroking the wand between her fingers, caressing its sinews with diligent consideration. “When you’ve got a girl like me on your side, things tend to work themselves out.”

“WHO THE _HECK_ ARE YOU AND WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Evie nearly dead-dropped. She circled and came face-to-face with a beet-faced security guard, his wide eyes bright and staring directly at her. She watched as he traded fascination from her to the wand in the demon’s hand.

Only, of course, he couldn’t see _her_.

“Oh shit,” Evie said.

“Watch your language,” the man admonished, before he had his large paws on Evie’s hands and she was clenching and pulling away as hard as she could.

He seemed shocked by her insubordination. It gave just the edge that Evie needed. She slipped out of his sweaty hands and stood, momentarily dazed, only footsteps away. Then they both moved and the chaos began.

Evie lunged for the demon, no clear destination in mind other than _away_. The man tottered after her, using the railing as support as he catapulted in the direction of both girls. The demon raised the wand with a steely look in her eyes. Evie noticed as much and inhaled sharply. She slammed her arm down into the demon’s arms, sending the wand spiraling out from between her fingers and across the slick floor. For a beat Evie and the demon locked eyes and Evie saw black, saw it as clearly as she saw the guard tumbling toward her. She saw black in the green that burned in the girl’s sockets. The demon’s fingers curled viciously into the torn holes of Evie’s shirt. But just as her grip on Evie had begun to tighten, both were sent sprawling as the man collided into them.

Evie’s knees slid across the glass-like surface of the ground and she took off running in the opposite direction, toward where the wand had sputtered itself out. She nearly collapsed again as she procured it and dashed, alarms now screaming. Evie hardly noticed that they had begun as soon as her fingers curled around the wand. She focused on the sound of slapping heels behind her and she knew that she was being chased by two people, now, and her life was most likely over. So, she ran like hell (which was difficult, given her choice of boots, which were twice the size of her ankles and squealed against the smooth floor with every sharp turn).

“Come back here!” The man yelled, and Evie wanted to scream back that she’d just saved his life, but he wouldn’t understand and the knowledge would do nothing to solve the predicament, anyway. So instead she sidled through every turn that she could and barreled through the rooms that they’d crossed so idly mere minutes ago. By the time she’d reached the room with her mother’s visage she didn’t chance so much as a glance in her – _its_ – direction. She did, however, slide behind the colossal base of the mysterious woman’s statue. Evie’s heart was hammering hard against her chest and she was close to crying. She wasn’t sure if it was the emotional exhaustion or physical exhaustion or the adrenaline or all the above.

She closed her eyes tightly and breathed in and out before chancing a glance. She rested the wand at her side and propped herself up by the skin of her palms. Her eyes surveyed the room. She could hear the distant sound of feet slapping towards her, but their echo made it seem distant and unimportant. Evie licked her lips and pushed herself down again on shaky hands and knees.

She stopped, ever-aware of the yawning opening to the room, and focused on the words that were elegantly carved into the plaque. It read:

‘Maleficent, Curse-Bringer  
Tyrant of the Lost.’

Evie murmured the words silently to herself and frowned. Maleficent… she had heard that before. She _knew_ it. If only she could place where…

“Excuse me,” the demon started.

Evie jumped and began crawling swiftly away. A strong hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“It’s rude to run away when someone is trying to talk to you. Didn’t your mom teach you that?”

“I really don’t think she’d mind, given the circumstances,” Evie quipped. Despite her words, her heart was back to its jackal speed. She dropped the wand and caged it between her fingers and the ground.

The motion did not go unnoticed.

“Give it to me,” the demon said, calmly.

“You gave me your word.”

“Give me the fucking wand, Blue.”

“You said that you wouldn’t hurt me _or anyone else_ ,” she continued, ignoring the ire of the other’s words. “I saw you. You were going to _kill_ him.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

The demon launched herself at Evie, who cowered and shielded the wand by rocking her body on top of it. The girl landed on top of her and splayed her fingers between the cold ground and Evie’s stomach, which was rising and falling rapidly with no discernable rhythm. It was a quick struggle; Evie pushed all her weight against the probing movement of the demon’s fingers, but the other girl used her free arm to roll her off and onto her back. She wrenched the wand from Evie’s hand and immediately held it against Evie’s face. Her eyes were cold and unflinching as they bore themselves into Evie’s.

“You don’t trust me, huh? Well, good. I’m a demon. You’re not supposed to trust me. But you can believe me when I say that this wand is the only fucking thing that I’m here for, and if you _ever_ do something like that again you’ll be very, very sorry.”

Evie’s frantic breaths filled the silence that followed. She stared up into the girl’s eyes. Then, the demon was pulling away and Evie was staring at the ceiling.

The girl stood and offered her a hand. Evie continued to stare blankly, baffled by this girl, by this demon, who could have you pinned to the ground and then act like your friend within the span of a minute. She imagined taking the hand and being immediately shoved back to the ground. It was the sort of betrayal that she’d experienced plenty of times while growing up on the Isle.

But this wasn’t the Isle. This was much more serious. Life and death serious.

She slowly pushed herself to her feet with a wobbly frown. She brushed herself off with shaking fingers and refused to look at the demon beside her. (She did notice, however, with some amount of pride, the slow descent of the hand that had been offered to her.)

She heard the girl tut. “Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings.”

“Tell _me_ you weren’t going to kill him.”

Evie’s eyes remained averted. A beat passed.

“Old habits die hard. Sorry, Blue.” But the last two words were mocking compared to the sincerity of her admission. “I can tell you’re a straight arrow when it comes to those things.”

“Murder,” Evie corrected, “when it comes to murder.”

“Yeah. Now let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Evie balked at the girl and looked upward, as if directing her attention to the all-pervading sound of sirens would indicate to the source of her disbelief. But the girl only quirked an eyebrow, and Evie was forced to acknowledge the fact that this girl was completely impossible.

“We can’t,” she said, slowly. “That guy saw me. If we leave with the wand, he’ll just follow me to school and send my ass back to the Isle.”

The girl groaned. “Fine. So, we can’t leave, but we can’t stay, and I can’t kill him, but we can’t let him leave knowing what you look like. Jesus. You are fucking high-maintenance.”

“ _Me_?” Evie repeated shrilly. “I’m high-maintenance? Is that a joke? It’s one in the freaking morning and I’m robbing a museum for a wand because if you don’t get it you’ll kill me and my friends one by one and all I’m asking you to do is not _murder_ someone and spend one freaking second thinking through a plan but you can’t do that because you’re too busy hating me to consider actually helping me! But fine. Sure. I’ll be the high-maintenance one if that makes you feel better about yourself.”

The demon twirled the wand between her fingers and watched her with a dull look. Evie wasn’t sure what to make of the moment. She’d expected an explosion in response, but had received _nothing_. She opened her mouth to continue her rant – she had plenty of things to say, after all – but was cut short.

“I don’t hate you.”

Evie had to stop herself from laughing.

“Oh, bullshit!”

The girl shrugged. “No, really, I don’t. I don’t hate you. I strongly dislike you. There’s a difference. You know what the difference is? If I hated you, you’d be dead.”

It was Evie’s turn to scoff, and then sigh. She brought her head into her hands and shook it helplessly. “My life is so, so fucked up,” she moaned.

“I actually agree with you there,” the demon replied easily, “but it’ll be infinitely more fucked-up if we don’t find that asshole and kill him.”

It struck Evie then that she didn’t know the demon’s age. Knowing what little that she knew of demons (essentially nothing) and the even smaller amount that she knew about this particular demon, her guess fell anywhere between one-hundred years and as old as time itself. During their worst interactions, when Evie’s fear of the girl became viscerally apparent, her guess usually defaulted to the older and thereby more terrifying age. At times like this, however, when the girl was quibbling with her nonexistent moral compass and ignoring Evie’s _very_ existent one, she was sure that the demon she had summoned was actually three years old. She was certainly capable of throwing tantrums like an infant.

And Evie was way too fucking young to be a mother.

But she pursed her lips and closed her eyes anyway and tried to express her moralistic sentiments as simply as possible, even to someone completely devoid of the sense of right and wrong, as the girl appeared to be.

“It’s… wrong.” She stared at the girl, at the wand in her hands. “He’s only doing his job, which is to protect this place. Now I know that you – _we_ – need the wand, but I’m not going to help you kill for it.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not going to _let_ you kill for it.”

The demon rolled her eyes. “Looks like someone’s been paying attention in Remedial Goodness. Yeah, I understand the concept of pulling punches.”

“Then pull the punch,” Evie insisted, her tone hard.

The girl blinked at her, rolling the wand from hand to hand as she did. Her gaze fell to the ornate stick and she sighed. “Fine. If that’s what it takes to get us out of this wax museum. I’ll just take his memories. No fun at all.”

Evie would have been relieved. But there was no time. Odds were, the guard had already signaled for back-up or otherwise communicated that there had been a break-in. And Evie assumed that the Auradon authorities were not thrilled at the prospect of losing Fairy Godmother’s wand, particularly not in such proximity to the coronation.

“He can’t have gotten far,” Evie muttered, her words quiet enough to be masked by the incessant alarm. She allowed one more glance to the statue beside them ( _Maleficent_ , she reminded herself, mulling over the name) and started back toward the room where they’d found the wand. When she checked that the demon was following her, her look was met with a simpering smile.

Unluckily for them, the sound of the alarm _also_ masked any footsteps that they might have otherwise heard over the raucous din. Evie returned to the wand-room, then back down the hallways that they had first passed through, and then, finally, the rotunda entrance of the Museum. This last room she crept into, perhaps unnecessarily, given the alarm.

She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. “Careful,” the demon murmured. Evie took a breath and noticed the man’s figure in the shadows across the rotunda; he had expected them to circle through the other way on their way out.

Evie looked to the girl behind her. Her eyes were set and serious, and though she didn’t speak, she hoped that they conveyed the appropriate warning.

“Yeah, Blue,” the girl intoned as she ghosted past her, “I know.”

But Evie held her breath all the same. Her fingers were curling in upon her palms as her fingernails dug deeply into the skin there. Though she knew that the demon was invisible to the man, she swallowed when her purple head swam into the half-light of the rotunda. She was sure that he would glance behind himself and see her, a petite girl with the wand in hand and the power to kill both of them on the spot.

Or so Evie assumed. It was a safe assumption, under other circumstances, were their combined luck not swiftly running out, dwindling in time with the confident rise of the demon’s fingertips as she brandished the wand and aimed it at the unsuspecting man.

Evie’s chest began to cramp as her suspended breath drew on. She waited for the man to drop, unconscious, hit with a sudden case of short-term amnesia. Instead, he stayed dutifully by his post.

She was so intent upon detecting motion from him that she gasped aloud when the state of things was disturbed instead by the demon, who roared in anger.

“THIS IS _NOT_ THE WAND – IT’S A FAKE – OF ALL THE THINGS, OF ALL THE FUCKING THINGS –”

Evie covered her mouth and doubled backward, attempting to hide herself further in the shadows of the hall. The man had begun to turn around. Though he was oblivious to the demon’s torrential anger, he had heard Evie’s reaction to it. And now he was looking around the room in search of the culprit. Evie noticed the man’s nose twitch. A confused expression took precedence on his features.

 _Oh god_ , Evie thought. _He can smell her. He can smell the strawberries._

Not that it mattered, because the demon was barreling toward Evie with fire in her eyes.

“YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS, DIDN’T YOU?”

Evie nearly tripped over herself in her attempt to avoid the other’s wrath. But the demon was on the warpath. Her pale fingers hardened on the wand in her hands as she snapped it neatly in two. Evie’s heart rebounded roughly against her chest.

Her voice was hushed. “No, I –”

“TELL ME YOU KNEW. DON’T LIE, I’LL KNOW, I ALWAYS KNOW –”

“I didn’t, I don’t, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” she insisted, and her words were quiet but not quiet enough, and the demon’s fingers wrapped themselves around the fabric of Evie’s shirt as she pulled her closer.

“Is that the truth? Is that the fucking truth?”

“ _It is_ ,” Evie said, and she felt nearly hysterical as she covered the girl’s hands with her own and pushed her off, away, anywhere but on her.

They did not budge.

“How would I have known, I don’t even know what you are freaking talking about, okay?”

“That’s not the wand, genius. It doesn’t work. It never did. It’s a fake. A decoy.”

Evie was opening her mouth to respond when the guard swam back into view. This time he was looking directly at her, right through the other girl, whose grip on Evie had not slackened.

His eyes were bulging and Evie had to guess this guy was not in the loop, either, because his face was red as he admonished, “you – you – _broke_ it.” He looked simultaneously astounded and furious. “You broke it. Fairy Godmother’s… her wand, you… you really broke it right in two, oh, when they hear about this, they’ll – they’ll –”

“Your mirror said it would be here,” the demon pressed, as the man advanced behind her. His loss was turning into a more solid form of anger now.

“Can we talk about this later?” Evie squeaked. The demon furrowed her eyebrows and then finally turned to see the guard, who had advanced fully upon her heels during her interrogation.

Although it happened very fast, Evie saw the next sequence of events in slow-motion. The man, easily twice the body mass of the demon, surged forward with an open fist, his eyes fixed squarely upon Evie, oblivious to the third body that was buffeted between them. Simultaneously, the demon turned her piercing gaze away from Evie and toward the man advancing upon her back. Then, so fast that Evie could only comprehend the end-point of its movement, the girl’s arm had swung itself upward and easily caught the man’s hand in hers. She turned in place so that she was only half facing Evie. Her free hand slammed into the man’s other shoulder as she released her grip on him.

Evie watched as the guard saw stars and fell gracelessly backward. The sound of his back thudding against the ground made her heart stop.

The demon turned back to her. “Your mirror said it would be here,” she repeated. “Either it’s broken or you’re lying to me. For your sake, I hope it’s the first one.”

“It’s not broken and I’m not lying to you,” Evie replied, so shocked that a normal response came naturally.

“Then why the fuck did we just steal a very fancy stick?”

“Because…” Evie’s eyes moved blearily from the body on the ground to the girl before her. She blinked, but no great realization came to her. “Because… I don’t know.”

She brushed past the demon and knelt beside the body. The girl said something else, but Evie was too focused on the man to process it. She licked her lips and hesitated. Though she wanted, _needed_ to know, she found herself stopping short of reaching for his neck and finding his pulse. She knitted her eyebrows together and thought, if she sat here for much longer and really thought about what was happening, she might cry. With that motivation, she darted forward with two fingers stiffened and dipped them into the crease of his neck.

Her fingers were pressed ever-so-gently upward by a warm and irregular thrum of his heart. She sighed deeply.

“I didn’t kill him,” the girl said from above her.

“Yeah, I know that now.” Evie’s words were tired. It was probably two in the morning by now. She imagined the rise and fall of Jay and Carlos’ chests as they slept, safe and sound back in their Auradon dorm room. The rise and fall of their breathing was choreographed to the beating of the unconscious man’s heart. The melody was so soothing that Evie was sure she could fall to the ground herself and sleep until morning…

Instead, she pushed herself back to her feet. She stood in place, not moving for a moment. Then, she covered her face with her hands.

When she exhaled she said, “I don’t know why the mirror said it would be here. I don’t know why it isn’t here. I don’t know why there would be a decoy. Okay? I really don’t. This wand was at the very bottom of my list of priorities forty-eight hours ago, so you’ll have to excuse me not being an expert. But I’m not lying to you. _I just don’t know_.”

Evie watched as the girl folded her arms over her chest. “I actually got that part. Is there anything you _do_ know?”

“That my life is over and I’m most likely going to die because the Prince of Auradon has a girlfriend and I’m an idiot.”

The demon snorted humorlessly. If Evie noticed a questioning raise of an eyebrow, she ignored it. “Die? Oh no. I still need you to find the real wand. You’re not dying. Yet.”

The words, however intended, made Evie feel even more trapped. Although the rotunda was grotesquely large, she was feeling claustrophobic. She would be spending even more time with this girl, this demon, she would endure even more threats, all in search of a wand that she couldn’t locate or get.

She bit her lower lip to stop its childish wobbling and prayed that the other didn’t notice.

“Well…” She turned and closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, because my life is going to be basically over as soon as this guy wakes up and the news gets out that I – that I –”

She stopped herself short of continuing by digging her teeth deeper into the soft skin of her lower lip. Evie didn’t know how much longer she could flounder for words; all she could imagine was the procession there would be when she was sent back to the Isle, Jay and Carlos most likely in tow.

Oh, Jay and Carlos. They were the true victims here. They’d done nothing to deserve this, nothing to deserve returning to the Isle. It had been Evie’s fault, really, for being foolish enough to summon a demon in the first place.

She sniffed in the silence, feeling so extremely self-conscious that she turned further away from the other girl.

“…Holy shit, Blue, calm down. Don’t have a fucking heart attack on me. You really think I’m going to let this cheese puff ruin my chances at getting my full form back?”

Evie didn’t answer, though she did open her eyes and glance back to the demon. By way of reply, the other girl sighed and crossed over to the body. She knelt and studied the man intensely.

“I’m not going to help you kill him,” Evie whispered.

“Oh, for the love of – stop thinking so lowly of me. I wasn’t going to suggest that this time. Pretty sure you’d start bawling if I did, anyway, and I don’t have the time to comfort you. Nor do I care enough to.” The girl stood again and fixed her gaze on Evie. “Since I know you don’t trust me, I’ll skip the part where you interrogate my moral standing and tell you right now that I’m still strong enough to take his memories. With your help.” The last of her words were added bitterly, an echo of her earlier instruction. She sounded even more displeased with the fact now that the wand had been dangled so temptingly before her, only to be snatched away.

Evie didn’t like the idea of being channeled again. It had been unpleasant enough with a task so inane as opening a door; she could only imagine that removing short-term memory would be more uncomfortable. Not to mention that she was going off of trust alone that this girl would not end up killing the man, anyway, and then she would have to deal with the fact that she had helped in her doing so.

But regardless of her reservations, the fact remained that Evie had no other option than to look the other girl in the eyes and say, quietly, “okay.”

The demon nodded (though Evie wasn’t sure her agreement was necessary, and the other had most likely waited as a formality, because none of this was in Evie’s control, not really). She stepped over the guard’s sleeping form and slipped her hand into Evie’s as easily as river water flows. The touch made Evie tense all over again. This time, however, she was far too tired to derail her ensuing distractions. Worries of being sent back to the Isle or harming the man before them subsided to vain trains of thought that involved the warm, buzzing feeling that emerged from the other girl’s touch.

She took a deep breath and remained in that feeling. It was nice. Unfamiliar, but nice. She had been touched before, of course. On the Isle there had been touches. Her mother, first, when she was young; and then those touches were scarce and unwanted. Her mother’s rough fingers became a sign that she had done something wrong. Not overtly, of course. But Evie could feel the disapproval as those familiar and calloused hands would take her shoulders and tell her – tell her –

( _You can be so much better,_ she thought, but the words made her feel feint so she ignored them in favor of this new feeling.)

And then there had been Jay. Jay, who was no Prince, but with whom Evie had been smitten with as a girl. He was classically handsome and he actually cared about her, a combination that was rare. He had touched Evie, too. He had strewn his arm about her shoulders and grinned at her like his life depended on it. Evie had grinned back at him, too. Those looks had taught her to love unconditionally. Carlos, of course, was affectionate to a fault. He would hug Evie and tell her that it would be alright, that _everything_ would be alright. Those moments were the few in which Evie believed things _would_ be, in fact, alright, even if they were still on the Isle and they would still be returning home to their parents. Not that Evie would ever admit that she wanted to stay out to avoid that. Not that she _wanted_ to avoid her mother, even now. The thought was shameful and it made her blink that warm feeling away in favor of disgust for herself.

The disgust mingled with perceived weightlessness as a current of force travelled down her spine. Evie gasped aloud. The feeling prickled goosebumps to her skin and didn’t stop until it had reached the balls of her feet. Her entire body was tingling as though every limb had fallen asleep, all at once. Though she tried to move and shake the feeling away, she was locked in place by an unseen hand. She could feel it on her shoulder and it terrified her.

Then it was gone and Evie was crumpling in on herself. She couldn’t have moved her legs if she had wanted to. In fact, she didn’t want to. She wanted to ball up on the floor of the Museum and sleep, preferably forever.

A set of arms wrapped around her shoulders, stopped her short of toppling over. Though she wasn’t sure, she thought she heard a far-away voice say, “I got you, Blue.” And then she was conscious no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaack!
> 
> I'm sorry about the time this took. A new semester has begun, so writing had to take a backseat for a while. I'm still unable to work on this story as much as I could a month ago, but I'm definitely not giving up on it - hopefully you guys won't either lol.
> 
> I have this story mapped out in its entirety. Obviously some minor details will change here and there, but for the most part it should stay pretty close. It's looking like it'll be a pretty long multi-chap story so... well, as the tags say, buckle up and hopefully you're into that kind of thing! Thanks for reading this far!


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